


An Adventure Worth Telling

by bluedawn



Series: Gingerbread Houses [3]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Coffee Shop, F/M, Fantasy AU, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-09 14:18:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 30,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4352135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluedawn/pseuds/bluedawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose Tyler had already been rather enamoured with the handsome stranger who came in to her coffee shop twice a day, even before he'd saved her life.  And now...well, she's a goner.  After all, he wears leather, he's enigmatic, he's broody, and he smells like burnt toast.  Wait...what?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Kelkat9 and I decided to explore the Mythological Creatures AU idea stemming from haimaee's tumblr prompt about a crush who smells like smoke and turns about to be a bit more than human. And...voila! this and her brilliant 231 Farrington story (seriously, go read it if you haven't yet - it's going to be epic) were born! Enjoy two different takes on an interesting and a bit ridiculous trope! (And thanks for the beta, KK!)

_Rose_  
  
From her position facing away from the entrance, Rose heard the bell above to the shop’s door to tinkle softly and held her breath a moment. She glanced down at her watch and, yes, sure enough it was 9:15 and he was right on time. Taking a deep breath, she turned to see her favourite mysterious man approach the counter.   
  
He was tall and foreboding, clad in a bulky leather jacket and black jeans, with his ever-present knit hat pulled low over his ears and the near-perpetual scowl chiseled on his stony face. He looked as though he had been carved out of the landscape of the universe itself, rough hewn and craggy around the edges. His nose was large, his cheekbones were sharp, and his bright blue eyes were as frigid as ice.  
  
She thought he was gorgeous.  
  
It was not a popular opinion.  
  
She didn’t care.  
  
He stormed up to the counter and looked her square in the eye. “Coffee. Black.”  
  
Rose smiled up at him with a wide, friendly expression. “Good morning!” she chirped, reaching for a paper cup and her permanent pen. “How are you today?”  
  
He raised an eyebrow at her and didn’t respond.  
  
“I’m fantastic!” Rose replied, breezing on as though he’d answered her. “Thank you for asking. Name, sir?”  
  
He crossed his arms and the eyebrow went back down, but there was no verbal acknowledgement of her question, which didn’t fluster Rose at all. This was normal.  
  
“Pedro McFloomyfout. Very good,” she chattered, writing the nonsense name on his cup with a flourish and a doodled flower.   
  
His face remained completely impassive, his arms still crossed over his chest, but Rose could swear she saw a tiny sparkle in his gaze. She lived for that tiny sparkle.   
  
Oh, she had it bad.  
  
It wasn’t crowded in the shop right now, never was when he came in, so Rose herself turned to pour his coffee into the to-go cup. Mickey was working with her today, but he was in the back someplace, probably using the shop’s wifi to watch videos (or worse) on his mobile. “You know,” she began, talking to him over her shoulder as she worked, “if you would just tell me your name, we wouldn’t have to go through this every time you came in.” She looked over her shoulder and found him following her every motion with his keen blue eyes, as she knew he did each time. He still didn’t answer; he never did.  
  
Rose sauntered over to the opposite side of the bakery display, to the counter where people normally picked up their beverages. “Pedro McFloomyfout?” she called, keeping her face serious. “Ped-ro Mc-Floo-my-fout?” she enunciated, louder this time. Her stranger had shifted to stand in front of the display of mouth-watering sweets but made no move to collect his coffee, though he still watched her closely. Giving up the ruse, Rose finally turned and held it out, grinning at him with a tongue-touched smile.   
  
He leaned closer to her and she tried not to noticeably inhale. He always smelled incredible, of pine and leather and something else...burnt toast, perhaps?   
  
Huh. That was an odd thing for him to smell like and an even odder thing for her to like for him to smell like but she did, all the same. It also occurred to her, occasionally, that perhaps she ought not be quite so pleased with the intent, almost rapt way he watched her, but she loved that, too.  
  
“See you later, Pedro,” she said softly and she swore his impassive mouth twitched, like it wanted to form into a smile but didn’t quite know how. He took his coffee, left his money on the counter, and stormed out as she watched him go.   
  
The bell tinkled, the door slammed, and Rose sighed.   
  
Well, only seven and a half hours to go.   
  
*   
  
It’d been slow business today, so she sent Mickey home early after he’d cleaned up in the back and done prep for the morning. All he’d really managed to do for the day was break the cappuccino machine and drool over the cute medical student who came in every Thursday, anyway. Rose didn’t have to work tomorrow, which was wonderful, but that meant that tomorrow she wouldn’t see  _him_. As she started to close up, sweeping under tables and binning stray fairy-cake liners, she wondered about her mystery man. Did he come to the coffee shop on the days that she didn’t work? But as quickly as she’d started, she tried to shut down that line of thought, scolding herself. It was silly of her to think that he didn’t. Days she didn’t work here were just regular days to him, after all. It wasn’t as though her presence made a difference in his life. It was just...he always seemed so sad, so weighed down by the world. She wanted to make his days a little brighter, that was all. But in the end, she was just the chirpy barista who annoyed him every morning.   
  
And evening.  
  
Once again, he appeared right on schedule, at 17:45, fifteen minutes before close. The bell tinkled and Rose got ready to grin at him, this evening’s name already on her lips when she caught sight of her wrist. 17:42. Three minutes early? That wasn’t like him. She started to turn when an arm grabbed her from behind and something sharp pressed into her side.   
  
Uh-oh.  
  
“You. To the register,” a rough voice commanded, forcing her back toward the counter with what must be a knife prodding into her side.   
  
Another gruff voice from over by the door said, “Empty everything from the register into the bag.”  
  
Rose’s breath was coming in short pants and she tried not to panic.  _Slow, Rose. Breathe slow,_  she thought. Community center courses in self-defense rang in her ears along with her mum’s faded voice. “Protect yourself, but if it’s just money they want, sometimes it’s best just to give it to them, Rose. A few quid isn’t worth your life.”  
  
She was forced behind the counter by the man at her back and as she turned, she saw the attackers for the first time. They were both large men, dressed in black, with hats pulled low over their eyes. One stood near her behind the counter with his knife up and ready and the other stood with his back to the door, knife in one hand and a black bag in the other.  
  
She glanced at the clock on the opposite wall. 17:44. A surge of hope swelled within her. He’d be here soon, he was always here. He’d, he’d...well, she wasn’t quite sure what she expected him to do, exactly. Swoop in like some knight in shining armour and take out the baddies for her? He’d never shown her any sign of being a secret agent or a cop or a soldier or anything...but there was power in the way he moved, a surety and a lithe confidence that made her trust his ability to handle himself and to keep her safe.   
  
She trusted him, oddly enough. Wholly and completely, certainly not the way anyone should ever trust a relative stranger. Especially since the only two words he’d ever spoken to her were ‘black’ and ‘coffee’. But it was true. She knew, instinctively, that he wouldn’t allow her to be harmed.   
  
She should probably examine that feeling some more, later.  
  
Rose’s hands shook but she fumbled with the register’s touchscreen, purposely pushing far more buttons than were necessary and making nervous hems and haws that had her attackers growling more threats. Rose glanced up again as she played for time and there! she saw him on the other side of the door, his quicksilver eyes moving over the scene with deadly precision. He pushed the door open slowly, his right hand coming up to catch the happy little bell to allow himself a silent entrance. Rose looked away, staring back down at her screen and mishandling it some more to distract the two men facing her.   
  
And then he was there. The man in front of her suddenly crumpled to the ground, his head hitting the counter at Rose’s fingertips with an nasty thunk, which made the man to Rose’s right squawk in surprise and turn toward his fallen partner. Rose took advantage of his distraction and struck out with her foot, kicking him in the shin as hard as she could. “Move,” growled her mystery man and Rose hurtled out of the way toward the dessert case, watching as he vaulted over the counter. His outstretched feet connected with the other man’s chest, sending the would-be thief lurching backward. Her leather-bound hero’s fist shot out and the other man buckled, his knife clattering uselessly to the ground beside him.  
  
Though her favourite customer’s back was still to her as he stood over the fallen man, Rose could almost swear that he was...steaming. The smell of burnt toast was much stronger now, but perhaps that was simply because she was standing so close to him. He turned around abruptly and Rose gasped. His bright blue eyes seemed to simmer and the rage and the heat that was pouring off him was palpable. How had she ever thought his eyes were icy? No, they burned. She involuntarily tried to step away from him, only to knock into the counter, smacking her hand on the glass, which made her hiss in pain. The tempest of his gaze shuttered immediately and, quite suddenly, he was just a man, albeit still a strange one.   
  
They stared at one another for a long, tense moment and then Rose glanced to her right. Sitting on the counter was a paper cup with her permanent pen beside it, just where she’d placed them, waiting for his nightly appearance.  
  
“Coffee, black?” Rose squeaked, breathing out heavily.  
  
And then the most wonderful thing in the universe happened. That tiny little muscle she’d seen merely twitch before moved again, just at the corner of his mouth. Then it seemed to gather steam, pulling other unused muscles along with it, more and more and more, until he was  _smiling_  at her. Really, properly smiling at her, with a wide, almost manic grin that lit up his entire face.   
  
“Might as well, thanks,” he answered easily, and Rose’s heart skipped a beat at all new words he’d offered her. Four whole words (five, if she counted ‘move’)! And he had an accent, ha! It had been hard to tell from just ‘Coffee. Black.’ but she’d had her suspicions, though she couldn’t quite place the region. She scribbled something on the side of the cup and then turned to pour in its regular contents. He took the coffee wordlessly and shifted, leaning against the counter in a way that seemed casual but was taut with power. If he noticed what she had written on the cup, he didn’t react, merely watching her with those intense, blue eyes as though this were any other normal coffee-ordering-situation. Rose had almost expected him to leave after that, but he stayed close by, never moving more than a few meters from her, even as she phoned the police and her manager.   
  
He steadfastly remained, at all times keeping himself between her and the two unconscious-by-his-hand strangers who were sprawled out on the floor of her workplace, collecting their knives and using some of the duct tape from under the counter to bind their hands. The police arrived shortly after that, but he let her explain their story, simply offering monosyllabic answers to the officer’s questions if he was prompted directly. She thought he’d blushed, maybe a little bit, as she described his heroic actions but she wasn’t sure. She did leave out the part about him...steaming. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more she was sure she’d just imagined it.   
  
Her manager, Donna, who also happened to own the shop, arrived just as the officers were dragging the two groggy men away with them. “Rose, are you all right?” Donna blustered, rushing in the door and making a beeline straight for her employee.  
  
Rose had always liked Donna Noble. The older woman was loyal and quick-witted and she exuded a sort of fierceness that always made Rose feel safe. She’d given a desperate and destitute Rose a job even though Rose hadn’t had any experience, she’d trained Rose patiently even though Rose hadn’t known a cappuccino from a cactus, and she’d even offered a place to celebrate when the holidays came around and Rose was alone.  
  
“I’m fine,” Rose answered, honestly. “A bit shaken up, but fine. They didn’t get anything.”  
  
Donna breathed out a sigh of relief. “Listen, Blondie, you could’ve given them everything in the register, and I wouldn’tve cared. What matters is that you’re ok.” The older woman grabbed Rose into a close hug, which Rose returned. Donna pulled back and looked down at her, her gaze rife with curiosity. “How did you manage to stop them?” she asked intently, examining the retreating backs of the officers and culprits.  
  
“Well, I had a lot of help,” Rose replied, grinning and motioning toward...thin air. To her surprise, her friend was no longer hovering by the counter. She spun on her heel and saw him edging out the door, apparently hoping to disappear unnoticed. He froze as he felt her eyes on him and, quite reluctantly it seemed, he looked up from the floor. He avoided looking at Rose, shifting his gaze to Donna instead. The two of them stared at one another for a long, tense moment and then his eyes narrowed and he visibly startled, as though he was suddenly seeing something completely different than the middle-aged, red-haired, secretary-turned-coffee shop-owner.  
  
Rose quickly glanced back at Donna, who, to her surprise, was breathing in deeply, as though she was almost...smelling the air around them and looking perplexed. Well, that was odd. Her boss’s expression flickered as she watched the stranger by the door, surprise morphing into something like fear, then shifting to suspicion and distrust. Finally, it settled into an eerie mirror of the impassive expression that Rose usually saw on the leather-jacketed man’s face.  
  
“You should leave,” Donna said coldly, staring at the man with distaste, which utterly bewildered Rose. “You don’t belong here.”  
  
“Donna!” Rose exclaimed in surprise, moving toward him. She stood between them, looking back and forth, bewildered. “He saved me! He saved the shop! If he hadn’t come in…”  
  
Donna narrowed her eyes, her attention completely focused on the man. “The debt is acknowledged,” she finally said, through clenched teeth, as though  _that_ made sense. “Now leave.”  
  
Rose’s jaw dropped and she looked back at her friend, who was still frozen by the doorway, staring at Donna as though she was a mysterious (and scary) mystical creature that hadn’t been seen in thousands of years. He blinked and then, in a rush of leather and the tinkling of a bell, he was gone.  
  
“What was that?” Rose asked, turning on her heel to face Donna.   
  
“Do you know him?” her boss countered, ignoring the question.  
  
“I -”  
  
“Rose, do you know him?” Donna interrupted, intently.  
  
“Well, no, not really,” Rose stammered, set off-kilter by the other woman’s behaviour. “He comes in for coffee in the morning and in the evening, every day, always at the same time.”  
  
“I thought they were all gone,” her boss muttered, more to herself than Rose. “How long has he been coming into the shop?”  
  
“I...I dunno,” Rose replied honestly. “Seems like it’s been a while now.”  
  
Donna seemed to contemplate that for a moment and then she sighed, heavily. “You’d do best to forget him, Rose,” she said, sounding tired. “And take the next few days off. I don’t want learn you’ve been back until at least Monday, do you hear me? I’ll make sure you get some compensation, how’s that?”  
  
Rose started to argue but Donna cut her off with a sharp look that seemed to shut off Rose’s ability to speak, so she simply nodded and left, taking her purse and her curiosity into the cool, fall evening.  
  
As she walked out of the shop, her thoughts were swirling with confusing whirlwinds of threatening thieves and mysterious men and baffling bosses. In fact, she was so caught in her musings that she wasn’t really paying any attention to where she was going until the loud honk of a car broke the relative silence of the night even as her friend materialized out of the darkness, his strong arm pulling her sharply back from the street.  
  
Rose peered up at him in shock, the two of them once again staring at one another in silence. Her mouth suddenly felt very dry and she licked her lips involuntarily. She saw him track the motion with his intense eyes, which made something inside her jump with joy but then, to her surprise, he dropped her arm as though she had burned him and stepped backward. “You’re awfully jeopardy-friendly,” he muttered.   
  
“How...how did you do that?” she stammered, finally. As glad (very glad) as she was that he’d saved her, she had more questions now than ever. “Were you following me?”  
  
He opened his mouth as though to form an answer but then simply turned on his heel to walk briskly in the opposite direction instead. “Hey! Hold on a minute!” Rose called, chasing after him.  
  
He pretended not to hear, hunching his shoulders and moving faster.  
  
“You can just go swanning off!” Rose shouted, jogging slightly. “Tell me what’s going on!”  
  
He stopped unexpectedly, practically making Rose slam into him. She skidded to a halt less than a meter away. “Your friend was right,” he said, so softly that Rose had to strain to hear him. She stared at the back of his head and wondered what he meant. “You should forget me.”  
  
How...how had he heard that? She shook her head and focused on him. “Forget you? Yeah right,” Rose snorted. “First, you come in every single day, all gorgeous and intense and broody, wearing that bloody leather jacket and looking all sexy.” The cant of his shoulders changed slightly and Rose wished she could see his expression. She hadn’t quite meant to admit all of that but, in for a penny, in for a pound. “Then you save me and the shop from two crazy weirdos with knives and THEN you keep me from getting flattened by a lorry and then you go running off into the night like you’re Batman or something! Sorry, mate but it’s too late for forgetting.”  
  
He was silent a moment more. “Yeah, too late,” he murmured and then he slipped off into the darkness so quickly that Rose was left staring at a shadow.  
  
Batman indeed.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Theta's point of view this chapter! We learn a bit more out our mysterious man's past and origins...

_Theta_  
  
He climbed the last rung of the fire escape that led into his makeshift home and shoved his screwdriver into the hidden lock on the metal-barred window that led inside. A series of clicks and whirs came from the lock as his intricately designed security system acknowledged his presence and then swung open to allow him entrance. He clambered through the window, sliding down the wall and listening as the window closed behind him, the mechanisms automatically relocking.  
  
He walked across the metal floor, the sound of his boots reverberating around the vast space and then he collapsed on a black leather couch that had clearly seen better days. Shuffling off the leather jacket, tossing away his knit cap, and throwing an arm over his eyes, he sighed heavily.   
  
Today had been a disaster.  
  
Well, possibly. Probably. Maybe.  
  
He had finally established a pattern for himself, a semblance of normality, even. He had a lair  _\- a flat -_ , he had a source of treasure  _\- of income -_ , and he’d even had an unattainable maiden,  _\- a girl -_  to pine after. Everything a dragon,  _\- a guy -_ could wish for. And then it had gone all pear-shaped in a matter of minutes.   
  
Just thinking about those two men in the coffee shop made him blindingly angry even now. They could have hurt her. If he hadn’t come in...he growled to himself and smoke started to come out his nostrils. And her! What had she been thinking? Not only had she put herself at risk by not giving them what they wanted right away, she’d then gone and tried to get run over by one of the metal monstrosities that the humans seemed to adore! He felt his skin start to warm and he took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down. It wouldn’t do him any good to accidentally set fire to the sofa.   
  
Again.  
  
He groaned loudly and burrowed down deeper into the leather. One year ago to the day, he’d woken up to the gaping stares of an entire construction crew of hard-hat wearing humans underneath a street in what he now understood to be a place called ‘Chelsea’, with no recent memories and no idea how he’d gotten there. He had been too surprised and confused to do much of anything besides run away from the equally-shocked humans, which had been lucky for both them and for him, probably. He’d emerged in the middle of a busy paved road, with people shouting and strange metal boxes honking, and tall, impossible structures of steel and glass surrounding him. He had ran and ran and ran until he’d collapsed against the blue door of the abandoned factory that he now called home, confused and hungry and completely and utterly alone.   
  
He’d raged and he’d cried and he’d melted practically everything inside the building and then, once he’d finally calmed down, he’d assessed his situation. As far as he had been able to piece together, several hundred (thousand?) years had passed while he had been...asleep? Unconscious? ...Dead? and this confusing mess of primates and pollution was the world now. He couldn’t find any of his people and, except for passing (and usually completely inaccurate) references to them in fairy tales, it was as if they’d never even existed. Humans were the dominant species now (wasn’t that an odd surprise?) and it was as if his entire world, magic and all, had simply vanished. He had been searching for months but he very rarely ever found any other magical creatures (and the ones he had run into hadn’t been keen to see him at all, most of them either running or attacking straight away before he could even say hello).  
  
Over the past year, he’d taught himself the primary language of the humans in this area (mostly by sitting in shops and listening to people argue - and then by telly), he’d figured out their system of bartering (which had become much simpler once he’d discovered their great interest in the carbon-based gems that he could easily manufacture using his particular  _talents_ ), and he’d managed to create a living for himself, all the while searching, without luck, for any sign at all of the life he’d once known. The humans had made some amazing advancements (electricity! He could go on and on about electricity! - And about indoor plumbing) and he’d devoured every book on engineering and mechanics that he could find, once he’d taught himself how to read their language. His people had a natural affinity with metals and machines and he often amused himself by making new creations, particularly those that secured his lair  _\- his flat_.   
  
He really needed to get used to calling it that.  
  
He’d been doing just fine, thank you very much, when he’d stumbled into that coffee shop about eight months ago. He’d been attracted by the faint smell of magic, unable to resist the possibility that something of the old world (besides him, anyway) had survived. And now that he’d met the proprietor, it was not longer a mystery as to why it had smelled so wonderful! It was owned by a fae! A real, live, honest-to-goodness fae! Who, granted, had not been pleased to see him. Not that he could blame her. Their kinds had never exactly seen eye to eye. He wondered how many of the fae had survived...and if they would know anything about his people. Perhaps this woman, Donna, had Rose called her? would be able to tell him what had happened in the last few...centuries. He hadn’t been around her long enough to determine precisely what type of fae she was, but it was clear she had an immense amount of magical potential. He wondered why she was running a coffee shop in modern London and why she’d seemed so very irritated to see him and why she’d been so very protective of his Rose.  
  
He sighed, remembering the sight of Rose that first time. It had been the smell of magic in the shop that had drawn him in, but then he’d glanced behind the counter and his fate had been sealed in a toss of golden hair and a tongue-touched smile.  
  
The Elders used to tell them what it might be like, to be in thrall, but he’d always scoffed, cynical youngster that he’d been. Yes, of course, dragons engaged in personal relationships (although dragon relations were completely different than what he’d gleaned of human ones). And yes, of course, dragons had often taken lovers from lower species. Human sexuality, in particular, was exciting and intoxicating and so very different from the cold, rather clinical mating that dragons participated in for the furtherment of their bloodlines. Just because he hadn’t yet engaged in a physical relationship with anyone back when, well, back then, didn’t mean that it didn’t happen. Having a human lover, or several, had been normal, commonplace, expected, even. As a race, dragons had always been fascinated by humans; in fact, according to the ancient legends, that’s why they had developed this additional, humanoid form in the first place.   
  
But thrall...thrall was different.  
  
He’d never understood how any dragon could ever be so daft as to live up to the ridiculous tales that were sometimes told about them (and that the mortals seemed to obsess over). An infatuation so overwhelming, that it made one want to carry some beautiful young thing off, to protect and keep and love him or her, forever? To center one’s entire existence around some other creature, to the exclusion of all others? To reject their people’s way of life, to renounce their race’s responsibilities, even to occasionally give up all connection to their species, all for one transient little mortal who might not even return the feeling or understand the immensity of the sentiment? No, thank you. He had jeered at the warnings of madness and he had laughed at the notion that anyone, especially a human, could ever have that much power over something like him.   
  
And then he’d met Rose Tyler.  
  
He let himself fall into the vivid, white-hot memory of their first meeting. It had, quite shockingly, been practically instantaneous. He’d followed his nose to the shop where, although the smell of the magic was cleverly obscured by the overwhelming odor of the bizarre hot liquid that the humans seemed to love, he could still feel some pulsing connection to the old world. Pushing the door open and rolling his eyes at the annoying little bell overhead, he charged in, determined to find the source of the magic as hope and trepidation played tug-of-war with his hearts. Once inside, after practically barrelling into the counter, he swung his eyes down to look at the human in front of him and promptly forgot how to breathe.  
  
She was ordinary  _(but she was exquisite)_. She was bottle-blonde  _(but she was golden)_. She was human  _(but she was...not. Not quite.)_.   
  
She was his  _(but not. Yet, anyway. But she would be. She had to be. He had to make her his.)._  
  
She was also speaking to him, far too fast for his still-tenuous grasp of the language and his surprised stupor to allow him understanding. At the end of the her torrent of words and sounds, her voice went up, indicating that she was asking him a question.  
  
Bollocks.  _(He’d picked up that word quite quickly and liked it a lot)_  
  
She repeated the chiming sentence again, more slowly, and with a furrowed brow.  
  
Ah, an order. She was asking him for an order.  
  
_Oh, an order he could do. He would like to order her to drop that stupid quill-thing in her hand and come away with him, immediately. He would like grab her hand and order her to run, run as fast as they could, and hole up together far, far away where no one would ever find them again. He would like to clasp her to his chest and soar up into the heavens, feeling her warm body against his. He would like to order her to…_  
  
Oh, a beverage.  
  
She wanted him to order a beverage.  
  
He panicked, looking up at the brightly-coloured writing above her head where swirly, curly-cued words that he could barely make out advertised wares and potions, the likes of which he’d never even heard. He considered bolting back out the door, but that would take him away from both the shop and from her and he didn’t want that. He wanted to know about the magic and he wanted to know about her.  
  
Then he thought of the crime drama that he was currently watching every evening, since he’d finally figured out telly. The grumpy man on the show always drank copious amounts of something called coffee (and, he’d later figured out - after an old lady on the Underground had smacked him, apparently cursed abundantly).  
  
He crossed his arms over his chest like the man on the show always did, just in case it was some sort of cultural practice that he didn’t understand. “Coffee, black,” he barked, mimicking the way that the DI formed his words. That seemed to satisfy her, because she turned away and began pouring something into a cup. He watched her closely, aware that she was still talking at him, but he was unable to make out her meaning, partly because she was turned away from him and speaking very quickly, and partly because she was blindingly entrancing.   
  
When she turned back to him, grinning widely, with her tongue between her teeth, he was punched in the gut with that same overwhelming, intoxicating  _need_ that had engulfed him the first time he’d laid eyes on her. He panicked once again and snatched the hot cup from her to flee the shop, completely bewildered.   
  
He stumbled home in a daze where he paced and paced, muttering to himself and trying desperately to keep his mind off the girl and the shop and the astonishingly disgusting liquid that he’d tried and then immediately dumped out on the ground by his flat, killing the weeds on the sidewalk. But the rinsed-out paper cup by the sink taunted him all day and, in the end, he only made it seven and a half hours before practically running back to the shop, which was quite easy to find this time. He didn’t even need to follow the scent of the magic because he could now follow the scent of her. Anywhere. To the end of the world and back, if necessary.  
  
She had still been at the shop, thank the stars, (he really didn’t fancy explaining away showing up at her flat when she’d only ever seen him once before) and he’d still felt an undeniable, inexplicable pull drawing them together, making him want to do very ridiculous things, things that he knew the other humans here wouldn’t interpret well. However, he was a neophyte in this culture and a novice at relationships in general, so he was at a loss as to how to function in front of her. Barely able to make eye contact, he simply repeated the ritual from the morning and she’d seemed just as delighted as before, chattering at him, smiling and entrancing, and then he’d run away once again, hoping that one day he’d remember other words in front of her.  
  
He snorted to himself, a new plume of smoke rising around his face at the action. Well, he’d finally figured out how to say something else to her. And it had only taken two near-death experiences and seven and a half  _months_.  
  
He groaned again and burrowed even deeper into the couch. Maybe things would look better in the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little bit from Theta and little bit from Rose as they both try to figure one another out in this crazy, confusing world. Thank you to Silver, Endelda, Kelkat9, and Trinity for their help with Theta's shopping basket. =)

_Theta_

He stretched awake, groaning a bit at the awkward placement of his wings against the back of the couch. The long, leather appendages were partially extended but cramped as they attempted to open out from their usual resting place along his back only to be hindered by the couch. His skin felt warm and tingly, particularly in a certain area south of his belt, and a glance at his hand showed the slightly blue, iridescent scales under his skin glowing with arousal. This was not an unusual occurrence, particularly after the graphic, life-like dreams he was prone to nowadays but it was uncomfortable nonetheless. He sat up, groaning a little as his wings finally had the freedom to flex but his jeans were still constricting and quite a bit tighter than he’d like. He stood and shuffled toward the loo, carefully stripping his jumper off around the extended wings and practically purring at the feel of the soft wool brushing against their sensitive surface, imagining Rose’s supple fingers tracing the length of them and running a hand down his spine.

He fumbled with the clasp on his jeans, hissing as they pulled past his erection and dropped to the floor. Muttering in frustration, he turned sideways to walk through the doorway into the loo because even though it was wide, it wasn’t quite wide enough. Luckily, he had designed his large, luxurious shower to accommodate his full wing-span. Between the movement and the lingering thoughts of Rose, he was now fully aroused, wings spread, scales visible, and his skin felt like molten fire. He stepped into the stream, first enjoying the patter of warm water and then, with a heaving sigh, turned it to freezing cold. He groaned again, but this time it wasn’t out of arousal but annoyance. He’d figured out months ago that apparently he could be worked up into a fury by even the slightest thought of her...but he couldn’t do anything about it on his own (not for lack of trying on his part).

He snorted. _That_ aspect of thrall had never been mentioned by any of his stodgy, uptight Elders.

No wonder some dragons went completely mad.

As his body returned to its normal, cool temperature, the blue scales under his skin faded away, and his wings receded to their normal position, he shifted the water back to something more desirable and thought about what he would do for the day. Rose wouldn’t be at the shop (he’d eavesdropped on her conversation with the fairy manager and Friday was normally her day off, anyway). He wondered if he could manage to casually bump into her somewhere else. He’d avoided that urge so far, satisfying himself with a bi-daily sighting of her, because he was afraid that he might frighten her away if he appeared around her too often. And also because he was frightened of what he might do, given prolonged exposure to her. Would he just grab her and run off? Kidnap her away to the skies like his ancestors had often done to their suitors? Force her into a relationship with him that she might not want? He didn’t want to be like that, but he was fearful of the immensity of the instincts she stirred in him and there were no other dragons around for him to ask.

He exited the shower and redressed, pulling on a maroon jumper and another pair of dark jeans, and then ate breakfast standing up by the sink, still debating his schedule. In the end, his desire to see her outweighed his fear. A bit ashamed of himself, he retrieved an object from his worktable and laid it in front of him on the granite countertop.

It was a medium-sized piece of hammered metal, bright and reflective, and shimmering with magic. He’d never excelled at the flashier aspects of dragon magic but this he could do. He’d worked an enchantment into metal as he’d constructed it, helped along by a strand of blonde hair that he’d rather shamefully acquired. He didn’t use it to look in on her often and he always looked away if she was doing something...intimate, but he couldn’t help checking up on her, especially on days when she didn’t work at the coffee shop and he didn’t get to see her. He waved his hand over the surface and an image of Rose shimmered to life on the silver surface.

Something inside him both clenched and released at the sight of her, his hearts racing at her appearance and his soul relaxing that she seemed healthy and happy. She was wearing jeans and a grey vest-top of some kind underneath a grey and maroon zip-up hoodie and she was walking down a street that he just happened to know was near her flat.

As he watched, she turned into the local market and picked up a handbasket. Grocery shopping! She was grocery shopping! That was a public place where he could show up without seeming like a suspicious stalker. That was a place where he could just happen to run into her. That was a place he could take her hand and pull her away and…

No. Not that last bit.

He waved his hand over the surface of the mirror again and the image of Rose faded away. Grabbing his cap and jacket, he practically ran out of his flat, clambering down the fire escape so quickly that, had he not had wings, he might have been worried about falling to his death. He walked to the market very quickly, his hands stuffed deep in the pockets of his jacket and his head down, scowling at anyone who got in his way. Once inside, he picked up one of the red plastic baskets by the door and subtly sniffed the air, following the scent of her through the market while casually plucking things off the shelves and placing them in his basket as his hearts raced. Ah, she was just in the next aisle over, he could feel it.

 _Be calm, be casual,_ he thought to himself. _Don’t frighten her, don’t scare her away, and, for the love of Gallifrey, don’t be an idiot._

\---

_Rose_

One of the things about working at a coffee shop that opened quite early in the morning was that on her days off, even waking at 9:00 felt luxuriously late. Rose puttered around her flat, drank some tea, watched some telly, and then, finally deciding that she needed to do something of merit for the day, pulled on some comfortable clothes and went to restock her fridge.

She took her time, leisurely wandering up and down the aisles, placing things in her basket and taking far longer to decide between brands than she ever normally would. Today, for some reason, it felt as though she should take her time, like a lazy afternoon at the corner market was just what she need to unwind after last night’s excitement. She had relived the experience over and over again, pouring over every detail and thinking about her mystery man.

She just couldn’t get him out of her mind and hadn’t been able to from his first entrance into the coffee shop eight months ago. She’d dated, she’d flirted, and she’d been attracted to men before, of course. But this, whatever it was, was different. Rose had been drawn to him from the moment she’d seen him and the attraction had only become stronger each time he’d appeared in the doorway of the shop, scowling and grumpy. She had never been a prude, exactly, but she hadn’t yet found the right guy to intimate with but, oh, the things that he made her want to do...she shivered. Most of them were things she’d only read about in books or seen in online videos (videos that she’d never admit to ever watching, of course). She’d also had some really intense dreams involving him over the past few months, which had grown more and more frequent as time passed. Dreams that made her shudder and flush just thinking about them. Dreams that involved him…

Standing at the end of the aisle, right in front of her, staring at her with wide, dark eyes.

Bollocks.

Rose stared back at him for a long moment and then shook herself out of her surprise. “Hi!” she said, brightly, hoping that her cheery tone would cover up any twinge of nervousness in her voice.

The man at the foot of the aisle shuffled his feet and stared down at his boots, which emboldened Rose. His general shyness was so endearingly familiar that she instantly felt more comfortable. “Out for a day of shopping, then?” she asked, sauntering closer.

He looked up at her, wild-eyed, seeming a bit alarmed at her sudden advance, but Rose kept walking. She eyed his handbasket. A mate had once told her that you could tell a lot about a man by the contents of his shopping basket. In his, he had: a can of cat food - a cat man, then. Ok, she could deal with that. Always liked dogs more than cats, but she’d live. Ketchup - again, acceptable. Open to condiments, perhaps he even fancied chips. Plain ice cream cones - a bit odd on their own, but maybe he was going to stop by the dairy aisle on his way out of the store. Vegamite - gross, but she could break him of that, she figured. Dried seaweed - ok, stranger still...but perhaps he was a cook or a chef or something. She’d like that. Two bunches of bananas - hopefully nothing Freudian there. And...oh.

Well, darn.

He had a box of tampons.

There was only one type of man who bought tampons and it was a man who was thoroughly ensconced in a very serious and comfortable relationship. She sighed, heavily. Wasn’t that just always the way? She’d thought...with the way he looked at her and the way he acted around her….but she must have got it wrong.

“It’s good to see you again,” she said, rather stiffly, shifting her own basket to her other hand and turning from him to examine the products in front of her. Coffee, of course.

Feet shuffled and she heard his leather jacket creak as he moved to stand beside her, towering over her and smelling stupidly wonderful. “Hi,” he murmured, his eyes examining the bags of coffee beans in front of him with exaggerated focus, which seemed to give him courage.

“You’d like this one,” Rose offered, tapping one of the bags.

“Hmm?” he asked, eloquently.

She laughed, despite her disappointment at his relationship status. “This coffee. You’d like it. It’s a dark blend, similar to the one we use in the shop.”

“I don’t like coffee,” he answered, gruffly.

“You what?” Rose asked, her mouth dropping open and forgetting that she was angry with him. She whirled to look him in the eye but he was so close, she had to tip her head back quite far.

He looked flustered again and his blue eyes widened. “What?” he parroted, looking as though he was going to bolt.

“Did you just say that you didn’t like coffee?” Rose asked, incredulously.

He shifted, looking uncomfortable and took a step backward from her and then made a sound like “hmrofn”.

“You come into the coffee shop EVERY DAY and get coffee. Two cups of coffee. Every day. How can you not like coffee?” she questioned, advancing again and shaking a finger at him. He backed up and bumped into the other side of the aisle.

His mouth opened and closed but no sound came out, which made Rose want to laugh again. She had absolutely no idea how she managed to fluster this tall, stoic man so much, but he was looking very, very ruffled (and adorable). She raised an eyebrow at him. “If you don’t like the coffee, why in the world do you come into the shop every day?”

He blinked at her slowly and then he seemed to give up some sort of internal battle. His shoulders relaxed from their tense hold and he allowed a small grin to tug at the corners of his mouth, suddenly looking languid and casual.

Oh, but he was gorgeous.

“Well, you’re there, aren’t you?” he offered, looking down his regal nose at her and letting his smile spread a bit more.

Rose’s heart sped up but she wasn’t quite done being confused with him yet. “But...but you’ve got tampons!” she said, waving her hand at his basket.

He blinked at her again and then looked down at his basket, glancing confusedly at its contents. Using his free hand, he poked at the groceries inside, looking a bit bewildered. “Wasn’t really paying attention,” he mumbled. “Which one’s ‘tampons’?” he asked and Rose’s jaw dropped again.

“What you do mean ‘which one’s tampons’?” she asked, her voice rising.

He held up the can of cat food and squinted at the label and then looked over at her. Dumbfounded, she shook her head so he shrugged and replaced the cat food. Next came the can of vegemite, which she wrinkled her nose at but still shook her head. He seemed to notice her facial expression and thus didn’t replace the can, instead putting it on the shelf between two different boxes of tea.

“This one!!” Rose finally said, exasperated, taking the box from his basket and waving it around in front of him.

“Ah,” he responded, tilting his head to the side. “What do they do?”

Rose began sputtering again. “I - you - what?”

He gingerly plucked the brightly coloured box from her fingers and turned it over, intently reading the text.

“They’re for ladies!” Rose blurted out.

“For ladies to do what?” he asked, looking genuinely interested in her answer as he examined the box further.

Rose blushed scarlet and chose not to answer. She didn’t see how he could be serious, but he seemed to be. “You’re a bit odd, aren’t you?” she murmured, shaking her head.

His gaze shot up from the box and, blushing, he placed it on the shelf next to the discarded vegemite. “Sorry,” he murmured, his shoulders high and tense again. “Is...is that all right?”

Rose considered him, feeling as though he was asking her a question that was much deeper and more important than it sounded. “Yeah,” she replied softly and his shoulder relaxed once more. She cleared her throat. “D’you actually want any of that stuff in your basket?”

He shrugged nervously. “I just pick up things that look interesting and buy them. Sometimes I like them, sometimes I don’t. Except for the bananas. I always get bananas.”

Rose smiled at him, charmed by his quirkiness. “Well, you probably don’t want either of those, then,” Rose said, pointing to the cat food and the seaweed. “This is just for, uh, cats, not humans. And I honestly don’t know what people use dried seaweed for. Fancy cooking, I suppose.”

Looking sheepish, he also put the cat food and seaweed on the tea shelf, making a strange little assortment of items clustered together there between the Earl Grey and English Breakfast. “And these?” he gestured to the remaining items in his basket.

“They’re both only good with other things,” Rose answered. Again, some small part of her pointed out that this was a strange interaction, that she should probably be put off by his odd behaviour and his lack of common knowledge but she ignored it, just has she had in the coffee shop over the past few months. Maybe he was from out of town or something. Very, very out of town. “The ketchup you put on other stuff...like chips and the ice cream cones you, you know, put ice cream in.”

He blinked at her absently again and shuffled his feet nervously.

“You’ve never had chips before, have you?” she asked.

He shook his head.

“Or ice cream?”

He shook his head again.

“Oh, that we are going to change right now!” Rose declared and then, in a move that surprised herself, she grabbed his free hand and started to drag him toward the registers. It must have surprised him too, because he dropped his basket in shock and didn’t even seem to notice as he left it behind. Rose silently apologized to the Tesco employees who would have to put it away and who would also be finding tampons in the tea aisle. When they reached the registers and Rose let go of his hand to move her groceries from the basket to the conveyor belt, she could almost swear that he made a disappointed noise in the back of his throat. She was glad that she hadn’t picked up much, barely two bags worth. As soon as her groceries were bagged and paid for, she turned to him and grinned, a smile that seemed to daze him momentarily and then she held her free hand out to him and waggled her fingers.

He looked from her hand to her face as though the sun and moon were rising in her eyes and suddenly she felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room around them. What could he could possibly see that made him look at her like that? she wondered. He took her hand gently, as though he was afraid it might break or that she might suddenly change her mind and pull it away, and then, with their fingers entwined together, he smiled at her. It was a gentle smile full of wonder and amazement, a smile she wanted to frame and keep in her heart for the rest of her days.

And then a rather loud man behind them in the line made a rude comment about hurrying along and the moment broke. He turned back to the rude man, presumably to respond, but she pulled him away from the register and out the door. “So,” she began, swinging their joined hands between them and enjoying the cool, slightly rough scrape of his skin against hers. “Chips?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Annnd...4 chapters turns into 5. Ah, well! =)  
> Chips, ice cream, eye-shagging, and poor, confused Nine-y Dragon

_Rose_  
  
The next few hours evolved one of the strangest and most fun dates of Rose’s life. She dragged the shy man to the closest chippy, a favourite of hers, and sat him down in one of the shiny, vinyl booths. He seemed happy to follow her lead, ordering what she told him to order (a little of everything), eating what she ate, and drinking in everything she said to him. His gorgeous, intense eyes never wavered from her and his undivided attention was intoxicating.   
  
The first hour of their impromptu date was comfortably filled with talk about the food - explaining the different choices he had for chip condiments (they found that he preferred pepper and vinegar, while she liked salt and ketchup), the ideal amount of crispiness in fish-breading, and different beverage options. He didn’t care for soda much, wrinkling his nose at the carbonation and muttering something about cheap mead. Through it all, Rose honestly didn’t think too much about his sometimes strange responses to her promptings about the food or the way he seemed occasionally baffled by what she would consider to be normal things.   
  
His rough, delicious voice rose and fell animatedly as he marvelled at the new tastes and she felt completely entranced by him. A few wonderful times she even managed to make him laugh, and the sound was a beautiful, low rumbling noise that came from deep in his chest. It simply felt natural for her to be here with him, as though she’d spent her whole life with him or, at the very least, as though she’d spent her whole life waiting for him to arrive. It was a delight to explore something new and exciting together, even if it was just a dingy, old restaurant on the wrong side of the Thames.   
  
Once the food was gone, leaving them with greasy wrappers, greasy fingers, and nearly-full bellies, the first silence of the afternoon fell over them.  
  
“I don’t even know your name,” Rose realized suddenly. She’d just run off through the street hand-in-hand with a complete stranger. Oh, the things her mother would have said.  
  
But he isn’t a complete stranger, is he? She’s seen him practically every day for eight months and he saved her life (twice!) just yesterday (ok, perhaps that was a bit dramatic. She  _probably_  wouldn’t have died either time, but still!).   
  
His expressive face shifted at her statement and the curious expression he had been wearing as he dipped a fallen bit of breading into some spicy mustard quickly changed to cagey nervousness again.   
  
“Names can be very powerful,” he said slowly, his intense blue eyes watching her and she shivered slightly as the sound of his voice fell over her. Once again, it felt as though his words carried a far deeper meaning than their simplistic sound, a meaning that she desperately wanted to unravel.  
  
She watched him closely, waiting for him to speak again and, when he did not, she decided to introduce herself, properly anyway. “I’m Rose Tyler,” she proclaimed, stretching her hand across the chipped, blue tabletop, her tongue sitting in the corner of her mouth as she grinned. “Nice to meet you!”  
  
He searched her face for something that she was desperately hoping she exuded and, after a long moment, he gathered himself taller and replied, “I am humbled by your gift, Rose Tyler. My name is Theta of Lungbarrow.”   
  
Before she could react to his strangely formal statement and odd moniker, he reached out and took her hand, but he didn’t shake it as she’d expected. Instead, maintaining eye contact with her the whole time, he lifted her hand up to his mouth and kissed it reverently. His warm, soft lips lingered and she didn’t breathe until he let go, the air rushing into her lungs after a long, charged moment.  
  
Rose felt blood rush to her face and she drew a shaky breath, falling into his darkened gaze as she suddenly imagined those lips brushing her own instead of just her hand. A heady wave of arousal hit her and she took another deep breath, willing herself to calm down. Never, in her whole life, had she ever felt anything like  _that_  before. She cleared her throat and shifted on the plastic seat, needing to escape his intense stare before she threw herself across the table at him. “How about that ice cream?” she asked, standing up quickly.  
  
He blinked and then shook his head, as though to clear it, then picked up her groceries before sliding out of his side of the booth. “Sounds fantastic,” he said and his voice was deeper and rougher than she thought it had been before. He reached down and took her hand and a frisson of heat spread spread out from that simple contact, which made her body hum with excitement.  
  
Oh yes, she had it  _bad_.  
  
  
*  
  
_Theta_  
  
Chips, he discovered, were fantastic. The crunchy, breaded fish wasn’t bad either - although he didn’t think he’d ever pick up ketchup in the market again. And it seemed that everything tasted better, everything was tinged brighter, everything was more fun, because he was here with her, although that might simply have been his thrall-light head creating poetry in her every move. Rose Tyler, he discovered, was even more brilliant when he got to speak with her and to interact with her and, oh Eternals, to  _touch_  her.  
  
When she’d taken his hand in that market aisle, he’d thought he might accidentally burst into flames. They had never been skin-to-skin before and it was an intense, almost overwhelming experience for him. He had carefully avoided touching her over the past few months, worried that even the smallest physical contact with her would ignite his baser instincts and that he would immediately carry her off, damn all the consequences. He knew that he couldn’t hold out infinitely, that eventually he would cave to her siren’s call, but never had it occurred to him that she might touch him first. And it hadn’t been just any touch. No, that intimate touch, initiated by her - all five of her lovely human fingers filling in the gaps between his as though their hands had been made to fit together, had been a religious awakening. She had, after all, touched him freely, with no prompting from him at all. In fact, he was fairly sure that he’d been a stammering idiot through most of their tea-framed interaction (he would have to look up ‘tampons’ on the internet tonight).   
  
And then they’d held hands  _again_ , all the way to this little eating establishment. As they sat together, he meticulously catalogued every single touch: fingers brushing over food, feet glancing off each other under the table, and that one amazing time she’d reached out and smudged a bit of mustard off his chin. Every caress of her skin against his made his hearts hammer faster and his temperature rise. Right after the mustard incident, he’d happened to glance down, only to notice with horror that the blue scales on his hands had shimmered into sight. He’d quickly shoved the offending appendages into his pockets, leaning back from the table, desperate to get some distance to calm down. She had been incredible so far, taking all of his slightly odd mannerisms and opinions in stride, but he didn’t think she was quite ready to see any of his blue skin (despite some of the more...hidden places he certainly wouldn’t mind showing her later).  
  
And then she brought up names.   
  
One of the strangest things he’d had to get used to in this baffling new world of humans was the cavalier approach they took toward naming one another. To his people, a name was sacred and powerful. It was the most private and most important aspect of one’s soul. Offering your name to another being was intimate and it required an enormous amount of faith and trust. But the humans tossed their names about between one another as though they meant nothing. In fact, names were often the first things exchanged in an interaction. While he knew that Rose didn’t exactly understand how much it meant to him that she offered him her name, nor how much it meant for him to offer her his, the moment still took his breath away. And, though he’d never have thought it possible an hour ago, he fell even deeper in thrall with her. His next action couldn’t have been helped, even if he’d been a thousand years old.   
  
The moment his lips touched her skin, ruthless arousal spread through him like a blazing fire. And he’d thought that holding her hand had been intense! His body immediately dumped what had to be gallons of pheromones in the air. His pupils dilated, his temperature rocketed, his trousers became impossibly tight, and he’d never been more glad that his leather jacket was bigger on the inside, because his wings had become painfully rigid, trying desperately to spread to their full extension. He noticed with a predators satisfaction that her body responded immediately, mirroring his own reactions and producing an immense wave of pheromones that matched and mingled with his, to form a delicious cocktail of potential. And then, to his lust-addled confusion, she didn’t fling herself across the table into his arms. Instead, she mentioned ice cream.  
  
He shook his head to clear it of the tenacious cobwebs of desire and focused back on the Rose. Yes, right. Ice cream.  
  
This time, as they stood, he reached out and took her hand, his whole body thrumming with satisfaction as their bodies connected. He had her name and she had his. She was his now and he was never, ever letting her go.  
  
The short walk to the ice cream parlor was a bit of a blur for him. Very quickly, he became fixated on their clasped hands, running his thumb along the smooth webbing of her skin and observing the many biological signals of availability that she sent his way. He reveled in each new feeling it brought out in him and wondered how many more exciting surprises were in store for them tonight. Once more, he thought ruefully back on the lessons of thrall that he’d mostly ignored in his rebellious Academy days. If only he had paid more attention!   
  
Some of his delight retreated as he considered his lack of knowledge - in more ways than one. He hoped he would be able to satisfy her. He’d never been with anyone before and, though he would be a dedicated supplicant to her every need, he didn’t really know the first thing about physical satisfaction. Hopefully his instincts would save him from looking like a fumbling fool.  
  
He realized that he hadn’t said anything for several minutes but Rose didn’t seem to mind his relative silence. She chattered about all the different types and flavours of ice cream and what she thought he might like and he tried to shake off his feelings of doubt and insecurity. As his patron Elder used to say, ‘Don’t count the treasure until you’ve left the trove.’  
  
“So, what do you like to do for fun?” Rose asked, drawing him out of his contemplative reserve as they approached the counter to order their ice cream. “Besides pay six pounds a day for a beverage that you don’t even like?” she teased, doing that thing with her mouth that drove him crazy.  
  
He was immensely grateful that his jacket not only concealed his wings but was also long and bulky enough to hide any other obvious reaction he had to her. He hoped that she wouldn’t look down at their clasped hands. “I like to make things,” he answered, simply. “I tinker with machines and create new inventions.”  
  
“That’s really cool!” Rose enthused sincerely. “You’ll have to show me something you’ve made, sometime!” Her eyes widened then and she blushed adorably. “I, I mean if you want to.”  
  
“I’d love that,” he replied, smiling at her. And not only because that, in order to see them, she would have to be in his lair.  
  
Flat. He’d meant to think ‘flat’, there.  
  
The ice cream parlor was nearly empty, so the dark-haired employee behind the counter seemed glad to indulge them (especially after Rose informed the girl in mock horror that he’d never had ice cream before). Together, they tried small samples of every single flavour, exchanging bites and opinions, laughing at each other’s reactions. As the impromptu tasting continued, they each got bolder, feeding one another spoonfuls and brushing thumbs against lips. Rose made a particularly glorious sound, closing her eyes in pleasure as she tasted sample of a rich, dark chocolate and he must have looked properly gobsmacked because the girl behind the counter had winked at him and stifled a laugh.  
  
They settled on one scoop each (dark chocolate for Rose and banana cream for him) and spilled out onto the sidewalk, crunching their cones, her groceries forgotten on the floor of the parlor. He was still operating through a pleasant haze of arousal and his hearts were singing with joy. He’d spent the last eight months searching for answers, searching for a purpose, searching for...anything, really. And at last, it felt like he’d found something of merit. Something to live for.  
  
He was completely engrossed in watching Rose’s agile tongue lick the dwindling amount of ice cream from her cone with near-obscene precision when she said something that made it feel as though both of his hearts had stopped beating.  
  
“ - and then my mate Shireen, she’s the one who works at the flower shop, said -”  
  
His last bit of cone dropped to the sidewalk as both of his hands went slack, the other releasing hers from the place they’d been welded together all afternoon. “Mate?” he interrupted her, his voice high and scratchy as his body stalled in disorientation.  
  
Rose tilted her head to the side and looked at him in concern. “Well, yeah,” she said, frowning slightly.  
  
“You have a...a female mate?” he squeaked, hoping desperately that he’d heard her wrong.  
  
“Well, yeah,” she repeated, still looking confused. “More than one, actually.”  
  
“M-more than one?” he gaped and his hearts began beating frantically again, all the blood that had been occupied elsewhere in his body rushing to his head and making him feel dizzy and nauseous.   
  
“And some guys, too, I suppose,” Rose continued, seeming oblivious to his panic. “Mickey can be a real prat sometimes, but he’s been one of my best mates since we were kids.”  
  
“Kids?” he sputtered in bewilderment. And Ricky the idiot? Rose - his beautiful, glorious, clever Rose had mated with that...that clod? A very dark part of him also reared up at the claim that Mickey had been the ‘best’ at anything, especially something that he hadn’t yet had a chance to prove himself at. All he’d ever seen the idiot do in the coffee shop was knock things over and break the machines.   
  
Oh, Eternals, the coffee shop. Did they...had she and he...in there? In  _their_  place?  
  
He knew that things had changed in the last few centuries, he knew that the humans often had many partners, that physical intimacy was much more common than it used to be. And, to be fair, some dragons had taken multiple lovers in their long lives as well. But to have more than one  _mate_? No. It didn’t happen. It _couldn’t_  happen. A mate was an eternal partner, an equal, a soul bonded to your own. But did Rose have...was Rose...  
  
He stumbled back from her, confused and hurt and overwhelmed. His body and mind reeled as his instincts and his self-preservation clashed with each other, warring for control over his actions. Wild-eyed, he took one last painful glance at the girl he had unwittingly banked his entire future on and then he turned and ran away from her as fast as his legs would take him.

 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, let me first say that I tried REEEAAALLLY hard to smoosh Theta and Rose's faces together in this chapter and it just didn't happen quite yet. And thus...four chapters that became five...become six. But, on the plus side, Fae!Donna spends a lot of of this chapter knocking our favourite two idiots' heads together, which is always fun.

_Rose_

As she moved slowly around the coffee shop in the early morning light, placing pastries on trays and flipping switches, Rose tried to make some sense of _that_ day, to no avail. No, she was still just as bewildered by the mysterious retreat of her whatever-he-was as she’d been three days ago. Sighing deeply, she remembered staring after him in shock as he’d dashed away from her in apparent horror. She hadn’t even been able to shout after him, she’d been so surprised and she still didn’t understand what she’d done to set him off. Over the weekend, she tried to remember every little thing she’d said to him, every little thing she’d done leading up to his abrupt departure, but she just couldn’t pinpoint her mistake.

They’d been having a really, really lovely time! Grocery shopping, fish and chips, ice cream...all in all, it was the best date she’d ever been on. At least it had been, until his expression changed from gentle besottment to utter dismay and then he sprinted away like a bat out of hell. All weekend she’d wanted desperately to find him and to speak with him, but she didn’t have his mobile number and she had no idea where he lived. She’d even gone so far as to hang around the corner market for several hours on Sunday, hoping that he might happen to come by, but alas, he hadn’t.

Still, she was hopeful. It was Monday, after all, and she was at work. Eight months of unerring tradition said that he would be here at 9:15 sharp, scowling and gorgeous in his leather jacket. Rose placed a paper to-go cup by the sink and put a special tea bag beside it, saving them for him. She considered writing his proper name on the cup, but something stopped her. His name felt like a special gift meant only for her, so she simply wrote ‘I’m sorry’ on the cardboard sleeve and hoped it would be enough to get him to speak with her. Since he’d said that he didn’t like coffee, Rose thought she might offer him some different types of tea, perhaps as peace offering. Come hell or high water, she was taking her break the moment he stepped through that door and she was going to apologize for whatever inadvertent mistake she’d made and then they’d be ok again.

Somewhat surprisingly, Donna had suddenly replaced Mickey on the schedule for the next few days. Rose suspected it was because the older woman wanted to keep an eye on her. She hadn’t forgotten Donna’s strangely defensive behaviour toward Theta and the suspicious, threat-laden way she’d spoken to him. ‘You don’t belong here’, ‘The debt is acknowledged’ and ‘I thought they were all gone’, she’d said, the words spoken in an odd, timeless, and almost alien manner. Rose wasn’t sure what any of it meant, but she had a hunch that Donna would be able to explain why the man seemed so baffled by everyday objects and, perhaps, why it had taken him eight months to say more than ‘Coffee. Black.’ to Rose. 

The early morning rush passed with little event, as Rose made distracted small talk with customers, avoided Donna’s not-so-subtle prodding, and counted down the minutes until 9:15. 

Which passed with neither hide nor hair of her tall, brooding man. 

If her boss took note of Rose’s rapidly dropping heart and souring mood, she made no audible comment. At lunch, Rose decided to go for a wander to take her mind off of her bitter disappointment and growing heartache. But walking the streets outside the shop simply reminded her of how she’d chased him down Thursday night after he’d saved her life (twice) and of their impromptu date on Friday. 

Dejectedly, she returned to the shop with ten minutes still on her break. 

His paper cup remained by the sink, sad and untouched, for the rest of the day. And the next morning. And _that_ evening. And all of Wednesday. As the days dragged on, one into the next, Rose became more and more depressed. How could she possibly have managed to offend him so badly with just a few words? He’d been coming into the shop for months, after all! She’d teased him day after day after day with increasing ridiculousness and flirtatiousness each time, always trying to get a rise out of him, always trying to get him to give her that gorgeous little grin. 

She was angry at herself for messing up the _thing_ , whatever it had been, between the two of them. And she was also mad at him for abandoning her. Ok, so she’d offended him or something. Fine. But he could have at least told her what she’d done! He’d acted like they had some sort of connection, some special bond, and then he’d just up and left her. He -

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

Donna’s voice interrupted Rose’s silent-but-angry motions as she cleaned one of the shop’s table-tops. Rose looked up to see her boss standing right next to the table, a steaming mug in each hand. She wordlessly handed one to Rose and motioned to the comfy, leather armchairs beside the table. Rose accepted the drink and sank into the cushions with a deep sigh.

Donna settled into the chair beside hers and sipped her mug. “Or perhaps a whole fiver, eh? You’ve certainly seemed to be carrying a lot around the past few days,” she continued carefully, eyeing Rose.

For a long moment Rose just sipped her double-chocolate caramel mocha with extra whip, trying to decide how much to share. Then, with another sigh, she replied, “I’m having trouble with, with my, my...I mean, with a friend of mine.”

Donna’s eyebrow went up but she didn’t say anything and motioned for Rose to continue.

“I said something or did something that hurt his feeling or offended him or something and now he’s disappeared! We were having a lovely time and he was finally TALKING to me, really talking to me, and then he just...he just ran away, like he had wings on his heels or something! I have no idea what happened or where he lives or how to get a hold of him and now I’m worried that I’ve lost him forever and...I-” 

Rose sniffled, emotionally overwhelmed by that thought even as she tried to shake herself out of it. After all, it wasn’t like she’d been _with_ him, not really. But their bi-daily interactions had become the highlight of her week and she missed seeing his daft face every day. She missed making up silly nicknames for him and trying to make him smile. She missed his stupid, lovely, burnt toast smell and his rapturous gaze. There was an undeniable connection between the two of them and Rose felt lost without it. 

Donna traced her finger around the rim of her mug and sighed. “Rose, what do you know about him?”

Rose looked up at her, surprised and a little defensive. “What do you mean?”

“What have you noticed about him?” Donna prodded. “What is he like?”

Considering the request, Rose tilted her head to the side. She sensed that this would be her best chance to get information from her boss, so she took a deep breath and complied with the request. “Well, he likes having a schedule, a pattern. He started coming in the coffee shop eight months ago and he comes in twice a day, always at the same time. He doesn’t ever talk to other people...in fact, until those guys attacked me, he only ever said two words to me. He always seems like he’s out of place and a little sad...and he’s always alone.” 

The words came pouring out as Rose realized that she knew more about him than she thought. “My gran would’ve said that he was an old soul,” she said, suddenly. The memory of her gran saying just that about her father flooded in, accompanied by a remembered smell of old books and jasmine.

“And?”

Rose was more than happy to speak on of her favourite topics now that she’d got started. It felt good to actually talk about him with someone else. She hadn’t mentioned him to Mickey or her other friends because, before Friday, there hadn’t really been all that much to mention and she didn’t know how to explain their odd attraction to one another to anyone else. “Well, he has a really interesting way of seeing things...and he doesn’t seem to know normal stuff sometimes, like what cat food is and how tampons work. It’s pretty cute, actually.” 

She laughed despite her bitter mood, remembering his baffled expression in that market aisle as he examined a box of feminine hygiene products like they were some grand universal mystery. “He always wears that leather jacket and that hat and he usually smells like smoke for some reason. He’s got a runner’s body, but he’s really strong, really powerful. His shoulders are really broad, but his waist is really trim.” _And he’s gorgeous,_ she added to herself.

“And?” Donna prompted again, her gaze sharp and intense - much like Theta’s often was. “How does he make you feel, Rose?”

Rose stared at her, a bit mystified by the question. She wasn’t sure exactly what Donna was asking, but it felt very important. Theta made her feel a lot of things: happy, excited, confused, affectionate, frustrated, aroused...but more than anything, “He makes me feel safe,” she answered, finally. “Like I’m supposed to be around him, like I’m, I dunno, happier when he’s with me and when he’s not...”

“As I thought,” Donna sighed, more to herself than Rose. Rose waited for her to expound on that odd proclamation, but she didn’t. Instead, the older woman studied her closely, her dark eyes reading into Rose’s very soul. After a ten count of deep scrutiny, Donna nodded decisively and clapped her hands together. “Well, nothing to do for it now. All right, then. Tell me about your date, Rose. Maybe I can help you figure out what went wrong. Men can be damn fools, sometimes. Especially men like that one.”

Rose took another drink of her sugar-coma-in-a-mug and launched into the whole story. Donna was a good listener, laughing in all the right places, “And you just left them there in the tea aisle? Really, Rose?” and even looking a little wistful as a blushing Rose recounted how exciting it was to touch Theta’s hand for the first time. When she mentioned exchanging names, Donna’s eyes grew wide once again, but she didn’t comment. 

“It was after we got our ice cream that he got super weird. I was telling him a story about one of my friends and then he just flipped out. He started stammering about how shocked he was that I had friends!” She stopped a moment, considering that. “Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have any? Maybe he doesn’t know how to have more than one friend? Or was jealous or something, I dunno. And then, when I said that Mickey had been my best friend since we were kids, he freaked and ran off!” Even now, the hurt expression on Theta’s face tore at her heart but she still didn’t understand _how_ she had hurt him.

“Hmmm…” Donna looked thoughtful, settling back into her deep chair. Then, an idea seemed to form in her eyes, blossoming across her expressive, and suddenly mischievous, face. “Can you tell me exactly what you said, Rose?”

“I just told you -”

“Humour me,” Donna insisted, her mouth quirking. 

“I was telling him a story about my mate, Shireen -,” Rose began.

“Mate?” Donna coughed, her smile growing larger.

“Well, yeah,” she replied. Then she frowned. “He seemed to get caught up on that word, too.”

“I bet he did,” Donna muttered under her breath before giggling.

Unheeded, Rose continued, “He seemed really surprised that I had a ‘female mate’ so, I got a bit offended and told him that I had more than one.”

“More than one!” Donna choked, her laughter starting to grow. “Is that all?”

“Well, no,” Rose said, still confused. “Then I told him that Mickey had been my best mate since we were kids and -”

With that, Donna suddenly collapsed into a teary-eyed puddle, laughing so hard that she knocked her nearly-empty mug to the floor.

“What?” Rose asked and when Donna didn’t answer, she repeated, “What, what is it?”

By the time the older woman had regained enough composure to speak again, Rose had already cleaned up the small puddle of tea and broken glass. Donna wiped her eyes with a napkin and sat up in her chair. The mirth in her eyes still shimmered, but there was now a serious edge on the front, as though she had something very important to tell Rose. 

“Rose, my dear, what do you know about fairytales?”

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 _Theta_

Today, Theta was sure, would be his last.

Or perhaps he was being melodramatic, again.

Five days. It had been five days since he’d seen Rose, five days since she’d (rather callously, he thought) dropped the bomb of her relationship status on him, five days since his thrall-laden heart had been smashed apart. He barely even remembered the dash from that street corner back to his lair. His universe, which had shifted to orbit Rose for the last eight months, had been thrown off course by an asteroid of hurt and betrayal and he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to pick up the shattered pieces of his soul.

He sighed heavily into the cool leather of the sofa against his cheek. Well, there was the melodrama again.

But, he’d never felt anything like this before. His energy was gone, sapped away by the grief of losing a thrall he had never truly gained. He now understood why the Elders had spoken of the phenomenon in such fearful, hushed tones. He was rather terrified that his heartsbreak was actually going to kill him. He hadn’t eaten anything for days, he’d barely moved from the sofa, and even the magic fire that ran in his veins seemed dull and cold. He hadn’t realized how much of his life he had centered around Rose until he no longer had her to set his schedule by. But he’d had a taste of what a life with her might be like and he would never be able to forget. He wondered if he would ever -

A loud banging broke through his dark stupor, rousing him from sluggish depression. The noise was coming from the ground level of the warehouse and at first he tried to ignore it. However, it didn’t seem to want to recede, growing more incessant and more annoying by the moment. His dolor swung very quickly to rage and he felt his skin heat and his wings extend as the disturbance continued. Primitive instinct began to take over, making him snarl and steam. No intruder would enter his lair and take advantage of him, even if he was in a bad way at the moment. Smoke curled from his nostrils and he leapt down from the second story, not bothering with the steps, barrelling to the door. His whole body had to work overtime to make those automatic functions snap, but right now his nervous system coursed with adrenaline and anger. The narrow cord of his sanity, which had slowly begun to erode in the face of Rose’s rejection, stretched dangerously taut and threatened to snap altogether. 

He ripped the heavy, blue door open and threw his shoulders back in challenge, bellowing his war-cry to…

A thoroughly unimpressed-looking woman with dark red hair, piercing blue eyes, and an impeccable scowl.

Some of his anger deflated at the woman’s familiar face, but instinct still recognized her as a powerful (and potentially dangerous) magical creature. “You do know that it is unwise to rouse a dragon from his lair?” he growled, his voice resonating low and humming with brimstone-like power. He hoped that he might be able to bluster her away.

She eyed his pale, thin, sickly form skeptically. “In your condition, you wouldn’t be able to swat a pixie,” she snorted, arms crossing over her chest. She appeared very calm, but he could sense the coiled potential of magic simmering just under her skin. 

He opened his mouth the snap back at her, or perhaps even breathe some warning flames if he could manage it, but she cut him off. “Yes, yes, you’re very scary. Now then, are you going to invite me in or not? It’s not polite to leave a guest standing out in the cold. I’ve got some information that you’re going to want to hear. And put those wings away, before people start staring.”

His anger drained the rest of the way out, replaced by anxiety and exhaustion and he shivered, feeling cold and unprotected without his leather jacket and knit cap. 

Everything in him was screaming to send her away and to keep her from crossing his threshold. Dragons didn’t let just _anyone_ into their lairs, especially not other magical creatures. In fact, normally only a dragon and his mate would ever enter such a private domain. But the warehouse had a blocked off entry area surrounded by his own security so he could confine the fae there, if necessary. By ‘information he’d want to hear’ she could only mean ‘about Rose’ and he knew it. Anyway, it was a bit careless of him to be showing his wings in broad daylight, even if no one was usually dared to come around this area. 

“Fine,” he snapped.

He ushered Donna into the unadorned, grimy, gray metal room and she looked about and sniffed. “Bit of a fix-er-up-er, if you ask me.”

He growled again and, to his annoyance, Donna merely chuckled. “Calm down, Scale-boy, I’m only joking.”

“You said you had information for me,” he responded, flatly.

“And I do,” Donna replied, crossing her arms over her chest once again and watching him with dark eyes. “I think we both know what about. My question is, how much is it worth to you?”

He blinked at her. What did that mean? Did she want money? Gold? Fealty? It wasn’t in a dragon’s nature to barter with the fae. In fact, it wasn’t in a dragon’s nature to barter with _anyone_. Usually, his kind just swept in and took whatever they wanted, damn all the consequences. He hadn’t really agreed with those high and mighty opinions back when there had been others to disagree with, but now he wasn’t sure what to do. 

And he hadn’t asked for any of this. He hadn’t asked to wake up, alone, in a strange world. He hadn’t asked to be the last of his kind. He _certainly_ hadn’t asked to be in thrall with a creature that didn’t know how to care for him in return. “What do you want of me?” he asked, tiredly. 

“I want information from you, first. Who are you? Where did you come from? Are there others like you? And I want to know your intentions,” the fae replied, sharply. “Both here in this city, and with Rose Tyler.”

An involuntary shudder ran down his spine at Rose’s name and he thought of how happy he’d been, just days ago, when she’d offered her name to him. He wished, in some ways, that he could just forget it. Forget her. But he couldn’t. She was burned deeply into his soul and he’d never escape the thrall. And an even deeper part of him didn’t wish for that at all. No, he still wanted to be with her, he just didn’t know how to go about it. 

Donna watched him, knowingly. He felt like sinking against the wall and crying, but he didn’t want to show any more weakness than he’d exhibited already. He settled for leaning back against a cool, steel girder and crossing his arms. “I thought your kind could read intentions. Can’t you tell what I want? You obviously know what I am. And what’s happened to my people. Which, admittedly, is much more than I know.”

She blinked at that, seeming surprised. “What do you mean?”

He rubbed a hand over his close-cropped dark hair and, with a heavy sigh, he told Donna everything that had happened to him since he’d woken up to the surprised stares of that construction crew. As he spoke, her face grew softer and gentler and he began to feel a friendly kinship with her. She could read his honesty, he knew, and he could tell that she didn’t mean him harm.

Once his tale was done and his voice was hoarse from disuse, confusion, and grief, he looked back at her. To his great surprise, she had shed her magical shimmer disguise and was standing in front of him in her smaller, true form. Delicate, gossamer blue wings fluttered as she shifted and her skin shone with flecks of silvery glitter. She was beautiful, but he couldn’t decide if she was more and less frightening in this form.

“I am sorry for you loss, Dragon. You are younger than I imagined because of your long sleep. I must say, in many ways the world did not mourn the disappearance of your kin, but I can feel your loneliness.” Her voice was lighter and more reedy in her natural form, her London accent receding and her speech thickening. With a heavy heart, he listened to her tell of the Dragon-kind’s last days, of the great battles that had waged between the magical forces of the age, both good and bad, and of the horrific monsters that had risen on both sides. Then, her tale faltered.

“One day, the Dragon-kind simply disappeared. No one knew how or why back then, and no one has ever found out. But with them disappeared our greatest enemies. It is as though they simply vanished...from Time itself, it seems. There are passing references to them in the stories of the mortals but, as I am sure you have discovered, most of that information is highly inaccurate. At the time, most of us were so relieved that the War was finally over, perhaps we let lie mysteries that should have been examined more closely.” She sighed heavily and looked at him. “But it is too late now. I wish I had more information to offer you. Do you truly remember nothing?”

He slid down the metal girder to sit on the floor, his wings low and life-less and his head in his hands. “Nothing of a war,” he whispered, which was true. He had no memory of battles or bloodshed and surely that was the kind of thing one ought to recall. He remembered his childhood and he remembered his Academy days, but he had no recollection of his adulthood before this place. He didn’t even know how old he was. Had he fought in a war? He had no idea. And dark, fearful part of of him wasn’t sure he wanted to know. 

Perhaps _he_ had been one of the monsters.

The fae crouched down in front of him and reached out as though to touch his knee. She looked like she felt sorry for him, but she was still wary, rightly so. He couldn’t blame her, if what she said of the Dragon-kind’s actions during the war were to be believed. 

And he believed. Dragons could be brave, clever, and fierce. But they could also be selfish, greedy, and violent and, more often than not, those easy emotions took the place of more noble intentions.

She looked at him closely and then tilted her head to the side. “I must admit that your appearance makes me uneasy, Dragon, as I fear it might herald the re-emergence of enemies we have thought long-dead. But I do not blame you for the past nor do I think you are an immediate threat. It is more difficult for our craft to work these days and our magic brethren are few and scattered. But I have a responsibility to this city to uphold and so I must ask you again, what are your intentions?”

He looked up at her, eyes bright. “I want no part of any war and I want nothing from this world.” _Apart from Rose,_ his treacherous mind added. “I want only to live here in peace.” _With Rose,_ his thrall-laden heart insisted. 

She nodded and then stood up and he followed her lead. With a twinkle, her shimmer fell back into place and she was, once again, a stubborn, unimpressed-looking human with an accent and an attitude. “Are you sure that’s _all_ you want, Scale-boy?”

“Yes,” he muttered, but the lie stung as his soul reached for Rose and found her missing, still.

“Doesn’t do any good to lie to me,” she sing-songed. “You’re in love with her, aren’t you?”

Theta frowned and wrinkled his nose at the use of the word ‘love’. He’d heard the shows on the telly use the word ‘love’ over and over again, but from what he could tell, it meant a lot of different things to humans. The plump woman on the cooking channel ‘loved’ her wrought-iron frying pan. The tall man on the ridiculous show set in space ‘loved’ strange sweets. Various characters on that nattering soap opera professed to ‘love’ this person or that one all the time, yet continued to engage in physical relations with hordes of others. 

Humans, and their confusing words with double or triple or...he’d didn’t know...thousand-ple meanings. 

No, he didn’t ‘love’, Rose. Not in any of those ways, anyway. Not like a frying pan or a sweet or a throw-away suitor. But he knew what the fae was _really_ asking. Still, a part of him resisted the urge to tell her. It was, after all, dangerous to offer such personal information to a relative stranger, especially one of a powerful rival magical race. If the fae decided to use Rose against him...things would not go well, he knew. But Theta figured he was in deep already and if he confessed his feelings for Rose, Donna might be able to offer some insight into his mysterious human. She had obviously been living among the humans for a long time. Maybe she understood them better than he did.

Before he’d been able to answer, Donna huffed loudly, apparently annoyed at his silence. “No use denying it. You are, I can tell. And, what’s more, she cares for you, too.” She fixed her stern gaze on him and jabbed a finger toward his chest. “So, my next question is: why have you been up here wasting away and pining yourself sick, making both of you miserable, I might add, instead of just _being_ with her?”

He shifted nervously, trying to decide his best approach to this sensitive matter. “She doesn’t understand,” he said, simply.

“Well, of course she doesn’t bloody well understand,” Donna snapped. “You haven’t explained anything to her. Not that I blame you. Cross-species relationships are always tricky - cultural misconceptions, differences in courtship rituals, not to mention the physical aspects, but honestly, you two make my head hurt.”

He blinked at her. “I still don’t really understand what that means.” 

“What what means?”

“‘Bloody’,” he repeated. “What does blood have to do with anything? The humans use that word all the time, but I don’t really understand why,” he began, genuinely confused but also trying to redirect Donna’s attention from the potential embarrassing landmine of the ‘physical aspects’ of his relationship with Rose.

Even he hadn’t really worked out all of _those_. Not that he hadn’t spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it. 

“Don’t change the subject!” Donna interrupted and then she smiled. “Or, actually…that’s a rather good illustration of what I mean.”

“What does it mean?” he asked, curiously. He’d worked out, of course, that it was a swear, but he wasn’t sure _why_ the humans liked to use it so much.

She waved his question away with a flick of her hand. “Its definition isn’t the point. The point is, that the word _actually_ means something quite different than what you _think_ it means. Cultural misconceptions, like I said.”

“And?”

“And...there are other words that, oh say a petite blonde human, might use that might mean something different than what you think she means,” Donna hinted heavily, raising her eyebrows at him meaningfully.

He stared at her uncomprehendingly. “And?”

Donna sighed and rolled her eyes. “Words like ‘mate’, you bat-winged dunderhead.”

His whole body stiffened at that accursed word and then he examined Donna’s syntax more closely. Was...was she saying what he thought she was saying? The small hopeful smile tentatively blooming over his face must have indicated to her that he was beginning to understand, because she smiled back at him.

“You mean -”

“Yes,” she confirmed. “That’s exactly what I mean. ‘Mate’ to these humans means ‘friend’.”

Friend. Rose had been talking about her _friends_. Oh, but that changed everything. He thought his smile might actually split his face apart it blossomed so quickly and so widely. A sudden infusion of heat and warmth shot through his veins, spreading from his now rapidly-beating hearts made him feel light-headed and joyful as his body began to catch up. 

Without a second thought, he impulsively wrapped his arms around the very surprised fae for a split second before bounding toward the door. “Oi! Wait just one moment,” Donna sputtered, laughing. “Where d’you think you’re going?”

“To Rose, of course!” he shouted, with a wide, dopey grin on his face.

Donna sniggered. “I know you want to get going, lover-boy, but have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re not wearing your jacket, your horns are showing, you’ve got the beginnings of a beard that would make a dwarf proud, and you smell like a sweaty ashtray.”

 

“Oh. Right,” he muttered, his ears flushing as he looked down at his rumpled appearance. He’d been wearing the same thing since Friday, pathetically wallowing in the diminishing scent of Rose even has he’d tried to forget her. His body was rapidly recovering from its detour into unhealthy territory but he wasn’t up to full strength yet and he was a bit pungent. 

“She’s going to meet you at ‘your chippy’ at 20:30. That all right?” Donna asked, still smiling at him.

He breathed a sigh of relief. That was plenty of time for him to nip into the shower and have a shave. “Thank you,” he said, watching the fae retreat toward the door of his lair.

“You’re welcome, Dragon,” she replied, then disappeared out into the night.

He took a deep breath and then bounded up the stairs with renewed strength. In less than an hour, he was going to see his Rose.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've worked desperately to smoosh those lovely faces together this chapter and they didn't quite want to cooperate. But there is some kissing! And next chapter there will be dragon smutz! I promise! (And hopefully it won't take so long.) Oh! And Theta calling Donna "Mrs. Nose" is a reference to 'Howl's Moving Castle' which is one of my all-time favourite books!

_Theta_

Theta shifted from foot to foot, pausing in his nervous pacing in front of the chippy. Just a few hours ago, he’d convinced himself that he was going to waste away, pining to death in unrequited thrall...but now he was freshly showered and shaved, he had on his favourite green jumper, and he’d even polished his boots. And Rose would be here any moment.

He swallowed nervously and resumed his pacing. 

He must have looked quite a fright, striding rapidly along the sidewalk while muttering to himself about not screwing things up and not mentioning tampons because a young boy with a small, yappy canine visibly crossed the street to get away from him. In fact, so caught was he in his own world, he didn’t even notice the subject of his thoughts approaching until a small, warm hand that he’d recognize anywhere in the universe laid itself on his arm.

Regardless, he jumped about a meter in the air.

“Sorry, sorry!” Rose yelped, pulling her hand back and scrambling away, as if she was afraid of breaking him.

Hearts beating wildly, he spun on his heel to face her. “Rose,” he breathed and, overcome with joy, he swept her up into an impromptu hug. She was here! 

The hug caused about a thousand different reactions in his physical and emotional being. A frisson of electricity shot down his spine, warming his body and his spirit. This was it. This was the way things were supposed to be. His arms around her, her scent enveloping him, her warmth pressed against his body. He had so much to learn about her still and she about him, but together they were and together they were meant to be. He tightened his arms once more and then reluctantly put her down, with what must be a very daft grin lighting his face.

“Hi,” Rose said, laughter in her eyes. He was happy to note that she seemed a bit breathless and that there was a delightful tang of human arousal suddenly in the air. His focus sharpened to only her and he felt his body warming up, his wings pressing against the confines of his leather jacket as his body raced to react to her.

 _Calm down, Scale-boy_ , he scolded himself, snorting as his inner monologue used the nickname the fae had given him. _You’ve only just got her back. Don’t scare her off now._

“Hi,” he replied, eloquently and then he coughed. “Chips?” he asked, reaching forward for the door.

“Chips,” Rose answered, grinning broadly at him again and then flouncing into the shop with Theta following close behind.

*

They spent a successful evening in what very soon became ‘their’ booth, talking and laughing until late in the night. Over the next few weeks, between the coffee shop (where Theta discovered that he quite liked tea) and the chippie, he and Rose got to know one another a bit better. He showed up for tea every morning and then reappeared each evening just before close, as he’d done before. There were still a lot of things they hadn’t explicitly discussed (their difference in species, for one) but they grew closer and closer by the day, exchanging stories and histories, though Theta’s offerings were usually a bit vague. He still wasn’t certain how much, exactly, he could tell Rose this early in their relationship. She had been wonderfully accepting of all of his quirks and oddities thus far, but they still hadn’t _really_ talked and he didn’t want to frighten her off. It was very difficult for him to believe that she could actually want _him_ when she could have any man in the world, most of whom were her species and none of whom had to keep their jackets on to hide constantly rigid wings or nervously stuff hands in their pockets to hide shimmering scales. Or have reality television and common table manners explained to them on a regular basis. 

But emotional closeness wasn’t the only progress they’d made of late. These days he was having a very difficult time keeping his arousal in check around Rose. Personal space between the two of them had seemed to almost evaporate completely the more time they spent together. They held hands all the time, they hugged, they leaned against one another, and Rose had even kissed his cheek a few times! But at the end of each evening, he walked her back to her flat and simply hugged her tightly to his chest while ignoring the fierce pressure of his wings fighting against his jacket and his warm skin. Then after her door shut, he would scold himself about being more in control of his instincts and then he would walk home to take a cold shower and dream about being a braver creature. 

About a two weeks after the encounter with Donna at his lair and his subsequent reunion with Rose, he was sitting on the shop’s squashy sofa by the fire, watching Rose rearrange pastries and drinking his tea (Darjeeling, today), when the fae suddenly appeared at his elbow. 

“Budge up,” she gruffly offered in greeting. He snorted, but obligingly moved to one end of the sofa to give her room to join him. “You’re looking less like a corpse these days,” Donna said, sipping her own tea and eyeing him over the rim of her mug.

“Yes, thanks very much,” he huffed. 

“Everything all right between you two, then?” she prodded, her keen gaze watching him closely. He was torn between being annoyed at her obvious gambit for information and being touched that she seemed to honestly care. He’d been surprised that she hadn’t turned up to question him sooner, actually. She had often been in the shop when he stopped to see Rose, but she’d kept her distance and let them be.

He nodded into his tea, eyes fixed once more on Rose, who had taken to making silly faces at him between customers. 

“Have you told her yet?” Donna asked, unperturbed by his lack of attention.

“Told her what?” he answered vaguely, distracted by Rose, who was looking sly. His girl suddenly gave him a rather sultry tongue in teeth grin, which made his ears flare and the scales on the back of the hand clutching his mug (the one clearly visible to Donna, of course) blaze blue. The fae snickered and he hurriedly put down his mug to shove the offending appendage into his jacket pocket.

“Fine, fine, play dumb,” she laughed, waving her hand and thoroughly enjoying his embarrassment. “Clearly you haven’t, otherwise the two of you wouldn’t be trying to set this shop on fire with your bedroom eyes. So, what’s the hold up?”

“That’s a bit personal, isn’t it, Mrs. Nose?” he snapped. He was _not_ having this conversation with a fae. No way. 

“Oh, probably,” Donna grinned. “C’mon,” she wheedled. “I didn’t drag your sorry, scaly arse out of that lair for you two to make moon-eyes at one another for the next hundred years. Now then, what’s the hold up?” she repeated.

His blush deepened and he stared into his tea and, to his chagrin, Donna laughed once again. “Do you need me to have ‘the talk’ with you? Not sure how it works, are you? Tab A, slot B?”

The utterly horrified look he must have given her sent Donna into another fit of hysterics. “We haven’t gotten there yet,” he mumbled haughtily, looking down at his knees. 

“Mmm,” she said into her tea, considering him. “Well, the way she talks, the only two places you two ever go are here and that awful chippy. Is that right?” Donna prodded. 

He nodded, once again wondering how he managed to get into these conversations and if he could get out of it.

“Well, that’s your problem!” she exclaimed. “You can’t romance a girl in a place with vinyl seats. And you’re _not_ shagging in my shop, ta. She works here and I’ve heard the stories. You’d probably burn the place down. Just invite her back to your lair, Scale-boy! Offer to show her your etchings,” she added, waggling her eyebrows at him.

“I don’t make etchings,” he replied, dryly, but his mercurial mind was racing. Was Donna right? Had he been doing this all wrong? He hadn’t known the thing about vinyl seats...was that some sort of unwritten human rule? Mountains of Solace, what if he was doing _everything_ wrong? How was he supposed to have known that? None of the shows he watched on telly had ever mentioned any rules about seat coverings and romance.

Donna seemed to take pity on him once again, probably in the face of his pending hyperventilation. “I’ll tell you what,” she said, sounding mock-exasperated and put upon. “I’ll order you some take out from a place up the road, Ianto’s, - nice food, not too fancy. Rose’ll like it, I promise. You go pick it up and tell her that you’re going to eat at your place tonight. Let her go home and put on something nice and then go pick her up. Light some candles, put on some smooth jazz, and, for Eternals sakes, at least hoover your entry way. She’ll be swept off her feet and then the two of you can finally _talk_.”

“Yeah?” he asked, sounding far more hopeful than he’d ever care to admit. 

“Yeah,” she answered, smiling gently at him. Then she made a show of scowling at him and shaking her finger, back to her brash self. “Provided you don’t screw it up, Brimstone-breath.” And with that, she stood up and breezed away.

“Everything ok?” Rose’s voice came from beside him a few moments later. She was holding her coat and smiling down at him in the warm firelight, more beautiful than ever. “Donna said she’d close up so the two of us could get going. Looked like quite a conversation was going on over here,” she added, looking a little worried.

“How would you fancy dinner at my place tonight?” he asked, nervously.

“Really? I’d love that!” Rose exclaimed, throwing her arms around his neck. 

“Fantastic,” he murmured and he laid a soft kiss in her hair, missing Donna’s eye roll and self-satisfied smirk.

*

_Theta_

Everything was not nearly as easy as Donna had made it sound. He’d walked Rose back to her flat, picked up the food - _which had been given to him by an extremely flirtatious, dark-haired waiter who he thought might just be a Selkie_ , scrounged up some candles - _and then went out to buy more candles because, in his nervousness, he’d managed to melt the first set entirely_ , set the table just as the internet had told him to, done some rather crude cleaning magic - _did he clean the toilet? He really couldn’t remember if he’d cleaned the toilet_ , showered, shaved, changed his clothes yet again, and then set off to pick Rose up at her flat.

Standing outside her door, fist raised to knock, he took a deep breath. This was it.

He knocked.

Rose pulled the door open almost immediately and he once again couldn’t help the large, entire-face encompassing grin that emerged at the sight of her. She had on a lovely black and white patterned dress that stopped just below her knees. The fabric was light and floaty and made her look incredibly demure. “Oh,” he breathed. “You look beautiful.”

Her own face lit up with a wide, happy grin. “Thanks! You’re looking pretty handsome yourself, Theta.”

His eyes widened and he swayed toward her, his hands moving automatically to grip her waist, needing her close after she’d just used his _Name_. It was almost too much...her beautiful, subtle dress, her golden aura of acceptance, and his thrall-heavy mind intoxicated by the pent-up physical energy between them. She smiled up at him, looking happy but a bit confused at his sudden proximity. “Rose Tyler,” he murmured, leaning in close to her and taking a deep breath. “May I please have the honour of kissing you?”

Her hazel eyes widened and for a moment he was worried, but then her lips moved forward to connect with his and he forgot every worry he’d ever had. In fact, he forgot nearly everything. Including his own name. Rose’s lips were soft and supple, just as he’d imagined. Her dress was silky under his clutching hands and her scent was overwhelmingly beautiful. Her warm hands wrapped around his neck, urging him closer with the delicious slide of skin against skin and he obliged, wrapping his strong arms around her waist so tightly that he was almost touching his own ribs. Just as they stumbled backward a bit, Rose bumping into her own door, pressing even closer to one another as mouth began to open, a loud throat clearing made them spring apart like chastened youths. Theta stumbled sideways and almost tripped over the new woman who, apparently, disapproved of their brilliant hallway kissing.

“Evening, Mrs. Redfern,” Rose mumbled at the annoying old biddy who harrumphed past them into the flat beside Rose’s, muttering about ‘young folks’ and ‘decency’. Theta chanced a glance over at Rose, who was looking very tousled and very embarrassed, with her lips swollen and red and her dress deliciously rumpled from his hands. She held his gaze for a long, charged moment and then they both let out a great shout of laughter, falling into one another in a completely different fashion. They had finally, _finally_ crossed over the intimidating physical boundary between them and they’d immediately gotten t’sked at by an old woman.

Just when they began to regain some semblance of composure, a loud, annoyed thump from the closed door of Mrs. Redfern sent them sputtering again. Theta grabbed Rose’s hand, enjoying the calming feel of her fingers in his. “Run!” he yelled and Rose slammed her door shut, following him down the stairwell and out into the street, the two of them still giggling like hatchlings.

They talked and laughed like usual all the way back to Theta’s flat and if his thumb darted up to caress the soft skin of her wrist just to hear her breath catch, well then, that was just a coincidence. And if his skin was warm, his wings were fighting against the confines of his jacket, and his trousers were rather tighter than normal...well, that had been quite a kiss. And now, after months and months of watching, and dreaming, and worrying...she, Rose Tyler, object of his thrall, holder of his Name, center of his universe, was going to be in his lair. With him. Alone. 

And that was the best news of all.

Rose seemed suitably impressed by the outside of his lair, commenting on the size, although he could tell that its location confused her. He couldn’t really blame her for that. As he’d discovered after living among them for a few months, humans typically did not occupy abandoned warehouses-turned-living spaces and, unlike dragons, they generally lived around one another in small communities (like Rose and her annoying old neighbor). 

She eagerly watched him opening the bright blue door (which he did with more flair than usual). Then he led Rose through the entryway and up the stairs onto the main floor of his loft. Theta eyed her nervously, drumming his fingers against his jeans as he tried to read her expression. His lair was quite large and he had taken great pains to make it look acceptable to a human but still retain some of the atmosphere of his former home. The flat was very sparse, decorated in dark greys and blacks, with heavy granite tile and stone work on the walls, which gave it a very cave-like atmosphere despite the windows. The windows had all been glamoured to allow filtered light in but not to allow anyone to see through, so he could walk around with his wings out or even in his full dragon form. The floor was tiled with the same smooth, grey granite stone and was warm to the touch.  
.  
Rose spun on the spot, taking in the open, expansive floor plan and then the approximately four dozen lit candles. And then she _frowned_. Uh-oh.

“Have those candles been lit since you left to come and get me?” Rose asked, sounding annoyed, of all things. Wait, had...had Donna been joking about the candles? He really couldn’t tell most of the time. Had he messed up again? Did he have too many candles? He figured that if a few candles were good, then more must be better. Perhaps that wasn’t the case.

“Erm, yes?” he responded, tentatively. “Donna said - I mean, I thought they would be...ah, romantic?”

“That’s really dangerous!” she exclaimed, gesturing to the many, many tiny fires. “Those have been burning, unwatched for at least half an hour! I mean, I appreciate the gesture, but geez, aren’t you worried about burning the whole place down?”

He almost laughed out loud at the notion that those tiny little wax things could possibly burn down a dragon’s lair but he wasn’t quite ready to explain the massive amount of fire-proofing magic wound into every millimeter of this place, so he merely waved aside her question. It was rather sweet that she was concerned. 

“D’you like it?” he asked, taking her hand and leading her toward the pre-set table. 

For a moment it looked like Rose was going to push him on the candle issue, but she just sighed and let it go, making an expression that he recognized. Sometimes when he said something particularly odd or did something that clearly surprised her, Rose would tilt her head to the side and look him straight in the eye as if examining his soul. Then, once she’d found whatever it was she was looking for, she’d blink and move on to the next thing, pretending as if he’d never said or done anything out of the ordinary or explaining to him whatever odd human custom he’d misinterpreted or accidentally flouted. 

The high, metal table he ushered her to was usually his workplace for tinkering projects, not a dining area, but he’d meticulously cleared and cleaned it. Two matching metal stools stood on opposite sides and he’d placed silverware, plates, and cups out on the table very carefully. All in all, it hadn’t ended up looking quite like the pictures on the internet, but he’d done his best. The food was warming in the turned-on oven (another thing Rose would probably chastise him about, upon reflection) and he had soft music playing in the background. All of which wikihow had informed him were necessary for a ‘romantic dinner at home’. 

“Your flat is lovely. I like the stone work,” Rose said, smiling over at him as he brought the food out of the warming drawer. “Feels very...I dunno, cave-like. But not cold. And it’s really large! Do you own this whole building?”

“Yep!” he said, grinning and distributing the food, which smelled mouth-wateringly good. “Bought it a few months ago.” (After he’d found out, to his utter consternation, that simply staking claim to a property and putting up magical wards didn’t actually entitle him to own a place he’d already decided was his. Humans and their bloody paperwork.)

Rose caught sight of the now-empty paper bag sitting on the workbench “Oh, you got the food from Ianto’s! I love that place!” Rose commented, heartily cutting into her lasagna. “I’ve been there a few times before. Did Jack serve you?”

“Jack?” he asked, trying a bite of his own pasta and, happily, finding it tasty. 

“Tall, dark-haired, gorgeous?” Rose said, drawing out the last word. He stiffened at her description of the other man but she didn’t seem to notice. “Quite a flirt, that one. Likes to call himself ‘Captain Jack’. Although I must say, I’ve never really cared for his cologne. Really pours it on, he does, but it’s a bit too weird smelling for me. I’ve heard he’s really popular with the ladies,” she babbled, sounding nervous.

So, gorgeous, flirtatious, and giving off a powerful, seductive aura. Definitely a Selkie, then. He’d have to keep an eye on that. In a normal human relationship, Rose would have been in even more in danger from the stupid seal’s cons once they were properly a couple, but Selkies were usually cowards. Once he’d claimed Rose, he didn’t think the Selkie would have the courage to pursue her. And if he did...well, he’d have an angry dragon on his doorstep. Theta changed the subject to one of the funny patrons who came into the coffee shop each day and ordered a different, endlessly complex drink every single day and they continued their meal without another mention of the ‘captain’ 

Once their plates were cleared away (which Rose had insisted on helping to clean) he offered to give Rose the full tour, showing her some of his inventions (though he didn’t really explain them fully quite yet), the kitchen, his worn leather sofa, and his small desk and computer. As he wandered around, rambling nervously about this and that, his palms sweated and he watched her closely, thinking every moment that he might reveal something that was too much and she would bolt. After all, tonight was the night he was going to tell her everything and hold to the Eternals that she didn’t run away screaming.

Rose, however, seemed to be breezing past her nerves. To his relief, she seemed to be enjoying the tour a great deal. She had taken to blustering around him, asking questions about everything and making jokes. “Annnd...what’s in here?” Rose asked, grinning at him and bounding over to one of the sets of closed double doors. 

“The loo,” he said dryly, proud of himself for using the human slang word and she laughed, pulling the doors open anyway. 

Rose let out a low whistle. “Whoa!” she said, rushing in and laughing again as the lights automatically flickered on, displaying the deep blue of the walls and the massive, and very impressive, shower. “Now _that_ is what I call a shower! It’s HUGE!”

 _It has to be,_ Theta thought dryly, thinking of all the times over the last few months he’d had to stand in there with his wings fully extended, annoyed and aroused. It was quite a lovely shower, though. He’d modeled it after the small, private watering hole that had been near his old lair. Two waterfall-like cascades came down from either side of the expansive stall and the heated floor stones and pressurized jets lower down made for a very luxurious shower experience (at least when one wasn’t trying to ignore one’s insistent thrall). Flickering through some of his most recent, extremely vivid fantasies, he immediately envisioned Rose in that shower with water dripping down her naked body, inviting him into the stall with her. He would move forward slowly, letting her pull him under the warm jets of water, toward her beckoning body. He would press her against the warm stone wall and worship her body with his. He would...

Rose waved a hand in front of his face and coughed loudly. He shook his head and flushed, attempting to banish those fantasies to the back of his mind and very, very glad that his leather jacket still protected him. But the coy little grin on Rose’s face told him that perhaps he hadn’t hidden his thoughts completely. She flounced out of the loo with an extra bit of sway in her hips and he couldn’t help but follow.

She didn’t ask about the other set of closed doors (his sleeping quarters) and he couldn’t decide whether to feel relieved or disappointed by her lack of curiosity about that. They did, however, move over to his well-worn (and slightly singed) sofa and collapsed on it together. Rose poked at one of the burn marks and raised an eyebrow at him. “Bet there’s a good story behind that, yeah?” she asked, smiling. “Had a lot of girls up here, getting the candle-and-tour treatment? Things get pretty _hot_?” she joked.

He blinked at her slowly. Now was his chance. But how? He couldn’t just blurt out ‘Well, actually Rose, I’m a dragon. Surprise! And when I get angry I tend to breathe fire and burn up sofas. But no, there haven’t been any other women up here. In fact, there haven’t been any other women for me, ever, anywhere, anytime, at least not that I remember. And there won’t ever be any, actually, because I’ve magically bound myself to you for the rest of our lives. So, please don’t smash my hearts to bits and please don’t leave me. Now, can we kiss some more?’ 

His expressive eyebrows knit together and he sighed deeply, trying desperately to figure out how to begin this conversation. Suddenly, Rose took his hand and pulled it into her lap, her thumb stroking distractedly against his skin. 

“Hey, I’m sorry,” she said and he blinked up at her again, this time in confusion. “I didn’t mean to pry. Just trying to make a joke. You really don’t have to tell me what happened.” 

He fixated on her apology. What could she possibly be sorry about? He was the one with the massive secret to share. Then it dawned on him that she’d taken his silence and his reluctance to speak as anger.

“I’m not angry, Rose,” he responded, turning his head to look over at her and squeezing her hand. “Just...thinking.” 

“Oh, good,” she breathed and he saw her shoulders relax. “Because I _really_ want you to kiss me again.”

Let it never be said that a girl had to ask him twice. They could talk later, right?


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gosh, these two are chatty. But they've got a lot to get out in the open, don't they? Theta has some things to share with Rose and, surprisingly, Rose has some very interesting news herself. And now all that's left is for them to discuss certain...physical attributes that may be very, very fascinating to one another. Thanks for sticking with this one!

_Rose_

Kissing Theta was very quickly becoming Rose’s favourite hobby. She would, very happily, she thought, spend the next few years of her life doing it. In fact, she might very well quit her day job and focus the rest of her life on kissing Theta. Their first kiss in the doorway of her flat had been playing over and over again on a loop all evening and she’d desperately wanted a repeat performance. However, Theta had been uneasy and on edge all evening, which Rose understood because she was nervous, too. She had her own secrets to share with him, after all. But his agitation seemed to run very deep, from his close scrutiny of her reactions to everything in his flat to his awkward fidgeting every few minutes, to his stilted, stiff explanations of his inventions, even though they clearly meant a lot to him.

But, oh, kissing him. Kissing him was just _right_. Just like their kiss in her doorway, the first tentative touch of his lips against hers sent a blazing shiver down her spine. The taste of his kiss was incredible and she knew that she would have to spend the rest of her life trying to describe it. There was just a hint of their Italian dinner, a dash of something spicy - anise, perhaps? and, when his tongue nipped out to test her lips before retreating, there was just the barest trace of something dark, smokey, and addictive. Her own tongue chased after his, desperate for more of that amazing taste and he quickly opened his mouth to allow her access. She heard a low, growl come from one of them as the kiss grew deeper, becoming more and more passionate the longer they dueled for dominance. When he pulled back to gasp a much-needed breath, she followed him, slinging a leg over his lap so she straddled his thighs, her knees digging into the soft cushions of the couch.

His hands automatically moved to her hips, clutching them tightly, just as he had done in the doorway of her flat hours earlier. Except this was better. This was infinitely better because she could feel his powerful thighs right underneath her and if she shifted just right she could feel…

This time they both groaned. Or rather, he groaned and she made a sort of mewling moan into his mouth as they moved very quickly from utterly-brilliant-snogging-on-the-sofa to very-nearly-shagging-if-only-there-wasn’t-so-much-clothing-in-the-way. His hands moved from her waist to her thighs and, quite suddenly, Rose remembered that she was only wearing a dress and some rather scandalous knickers and now, there was really very little between her and what felt like something very, very promising tucked away under Theta’s tight, black jeans. She then also remembered that she, too, had hands and that she was dying to find out if the skin under his jumper was as soft as the wool. Her hands, which had been toying with the bottom of his ever-present knit hat (and she sooo wanted to see what his hair looked like under there), moved down between them. 

He sucked in a surprised breath as she traced her hands across his chest and he panted against her mouth in anticipation as she moved lower. She felt his heartbeat increase exponentially until it almost felt like there were two of them in there, threatening to burst out of his chest. Her own heart felt as though it was going just as fast, as though it was trying to jump out of her body and into his. As she skimmed her fingers down, pressing slightly against his taut and tensed stomach, he made another groaning growl into her mouth and then he slipped his hands under the hem of her dress to trace his thumbs against the smooth, bare skin of her thighs. His bold move encouraged her questing fingers to seek their own prize: the lovely, warm skin just under his jumper. However, she had no more than begun to trace her hands around his waist and up his solid, strong back when every muscle in his body tensed and then he practically threw her off his lap, scrambling away with a yelp.

Rose stared at him in utter bewilderment from the opposite end of the sofa, at a complete loss for words. He stared back at her with wide eyes, looking for all the world like a cornered wild thing, baffled and fearful. He was still panting and his lips were red and swollen (much like hers, she suspected), which all seemed good, but every muscle in his body strained against some unseen foe and his fists were clenched tight. Actually, as she looked closer, she saw that his hands looked quite odd, shimmering almost blue in the dim, candle-lit room. 

He seemed to notice her staring and quickly shoved both hands into his jacket pockets. 

A five count of silence ticked by with the air between them taut with tension. 

“I’m sorry,” they both said, each staring awkwardly at the other in surprise as the words came out in unison.

Rose wasn’t sure exactly _what_ she was sorry about, but she clearly had upset him in some way, again. She didn’t want a repeat of the horrible days of silence after the ice cream debacle and so she was determined to stand her ground here and set him straight on...whatever this was. But how could she know what was wrong if he didn’t _talk_ to her? He had never even told her what the original problem had been, anyway. Donna had waved it away as a simple misunderstanding and she’d accepted the woman’s word, hoping that Theta would broach the subject with her at some point. But what was he apologizing for now? Stopping? Throwing her across the sofa? Rejecting her? 

Oh, no, was he rejecting her?

“Why are you apologizing?” Theta asked, interrupting her inner monologue and looking genuinely confused. 

Rose flushed and looked down at her bare knees, fidgeting with the hem of her dress. They hadn’t been talking when he’d panicked, so it couldn’t have been her words that had upset him. So, there must be something else she’d done wrong, which only left one option, really. “Well, I-, I obviously did something wrong,” she mumbled and, to her horror, a few tears formed at the corner of her eyes. She fought them back, not wanting to look weak as well as inexperienced in front of him. “I mean, I don’t have a lot of, you know, practice...or _any_ much practice, really, so I was probably rubbish at it. But I can learn!”

“Rubbish at what?” he asked, still staring at her blankly. His head was tilted to the side and he was once again studying her as if she was a grand universal mystery.

She wished she could melt into the sofa cushions and let her mortification kill her. Was he being deliberately obtuse? He’d never been purposefully cruel before, just hapless and, on occasion, clueless. She huffed a sigh, knowing that the only way they could ever move forward was by being honest with one another, but _damn_ , this was hard. “The...you know. The kissing. And...stuff. I’m sorry I was bad at it.”

Theta made an odd noise that might have been a strangled laugh and her head shot up, ready to tell him off and leave, if that’s the way he was going to be. Forget about being mature. If he was going to be an arse, she was leaving.

He took his right hand from his pocket and reached over to rest his fingers on hers, attempting to soothe away the hurt that must have showed on her face. “Rose, that’s not it at all,” he said, softly. “You were brilliant. You are brilliant.” He coughed and Rose watched with interest as the tips of his ears, just visible under his slightly-askew cap, turned adorably red. “And honestly, I think I have about the same amount of experience as you. Or, perhaps even less. So, if anyone should be worried about being rubbish at kissing, it’s me.”

She let that sink in, secretly very glad that they were on equal footing. “So, not the kissing, then. What was it?”

Theta huffed an enormous sigh and shifted nervously, so Rose flipped her hand over so they were palm to palm, curling her fingers between his. “You can tell me anything,” Rose encouraged, squeezing his hand. 

“Are you sure?” he asked, peering at her closely. “Anything?”

Rose cocked her head at him. “Yeah. Anything.”

He took a deep breath and tightened their joined fingers. “Promise me that you’ll let me tell you everything before you react. Promise me that you won’t leave until I say everything I need to say. And then if you want to go, I won’t try to stop you. Promise me, please, Rose.”

Even more confused and a bit nervous, Rose nodded. “I promise.”

“You may have noticed that I’m not...that I didn’t...well, that there are a lot of things that I didn’t know about being a human, in the beginning,” he began. “I didn’t know how to order a coffee or speak your language or what a tampon was. And there’re lots of things I still don’t know, probably. There’s a good reason for that. But before I tell you what it is, I just want to tell you that you’re fantastic, Rose. Absolutely fantastic. You mean more to me than anyone or anything ever has or ever will and I want you to understand that I’ll care for you like this for the rest of my life, even if you decide you don’t want anything to do with me after tonight. You’ve saved me, Rose Tyler, in more ways than you’ll probably ever know.”

She found herself blinking back tears once again, but for a completely different reason this time. “Theta, I -” she began, but he cut her off, gently.

“Just let me finish, please,” he pleaded, rubbing his long, calloused thumb over hers. He took one more deep breath and closed his eyes. 

“I’m not human.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
 _Theta_

“I’m not human,” he said, eyes squeezed tightly shut, too nervous to watch her reaction. He waited a long moment, expecting to hear surprised denials or, at the very least, persistent questions from her, but instead all he heard was a soft, musical laugh. Oh, Eternals. Did she think he was kidding? His eyes flew open and he found her smiling at him benevolently, her tears completely banished now, a bemused expression on her face.

“Oh, Theta,” she said, still laughing slightly. “I know that!”

“You...you what?” he sputtered, letting go of her hand in surprise.

“I mean, I figured. M’not stupid, you know. After a while, I sort of put the pieces together. And Donna kind of hinted at it, anyway. I wondered when you were going to talk to me about it. But I wanted to wait until you were ready,” she said, matter-of-factly.

“How...do you...Donna,” he started, trying and failing to put together an entire sentence. What the hell did she mean that she already knew?

“Are you a fae, like Donna?” Rose asked, tilting her head and scrutinizing him. “She showed me her wings. Do you have wings like that? Hers were a really pretty blue colour. You do love blue! Oh! Is that why you wear your jacket all the time? She could hide hers with magic or something, but -”

The utter indignation of being mistaken for a fae finally shook him from his shock. “I am not a fae!” he interrupted

She immediately looked chastised at the harsh tone of his voice. “Sorry, sorry! It’s just, the fae are the only other type of person I’ve met! Well, except for Ianto, from the restaurant. He’s some sort of Welsh elf that I can’t pronounce, but from what he’s told me, you’re definitely not an elf. Unless you’re a different type of elf than him. I dunno. Are there different types of elves? This is all relatively new to me.”

This statement surprised him so much that he once more went back to gaping at her like an idiot. She...she knew about the magic world? And the restaurant owner was an elf? And she was totally...ok with all of this?

“How long have you known?” he asked, still completely bewildered. 

“Well, Donna sat me down and talked about it with me the day we got back together, you know, after the chippie. She wanted to make sure that I knew what I was getting into, I think. And she wanted to make sure that I understood why they’ve been protecting me for so long. And the next day I asked Ianto what he was, point blank. He’s been a good friend.”

Theta wondered vaguely if he was going to do anything other than be completely baffled in this conversation.“What do you mean ‘protecting you’?” he asked with a frown, 

Rose twisted her hands together nervously. “Well,” she said, staring down at her knees. “Turns out I’m not exactly completely human, either.”

His jaw dropped to the floor. Unable to conjure up a valid word in any language, he just stared at her.

“Apparently, my grandad was a Phoenix,” Rose said, quietly. “I didn’t know until Donna told me, but after she said it, it kind of made sense. I thought about all the stuff my mum used to tell me about him and about my dad and the way my gran used to speak about them and it all clicked together.”

Holy Gallifrey, a _Phoenix_? “What happened to him?” Theta asked, hoarsely.

“Apparently, he was a few hundred years old when he met my gran and he was tired of living that life. According to Donna, the Phoenix were practically immortal and really powerful, so there were always people out to get him or capture him or try to use him. So he gave it all up to live a normal, mortal life with her. He died of cancer when I was just a baby. Gran used to talk about how ironic his death was, but I didn’t understand back then.”

He watched her in silence as she paused to gather her thoughts. “My grandparents didn’t think that my dad inherited any of grandad’s powers, but apparently there were some people out there that thought he might be valuable anyway. Mum told me when I was a kid that he died in a car accident, but that’s not what happened. Someone took him, Theta. He disappeared in plain sight right in front of some fancy church and no one’s ever seen him since.” Rose twisted her hands together and then wiped a tear from her cheek. “Once gran died, mum was the only one who knew, so she tried to keep everything a secret. But then she got sick, so she went looking for someone that might be able to protect me, just in case. She found Ianto first, by accident, I think, and he pointed her to Donna. Mum told her the whole story, and asked her to watch over me. I guess she was worried that someone might come after me, ‘cause Phoenix used to be pretty powerful, so she didn’t write any of this stuff down.”

“Wow,” Theta said, leaning back against the sofa. Extraordinarily, her story seemed even stranger than his own. “That’s a lot to take in.”

Rose heaved a worried sigh, much like his own earlier sounds. “There’s more.”

“More?” 

“Yeah...it’s just, lately, I’ve started noticing some weird stuff happening around me,” Rose said, fidgeting again. 

“Like what?” he asked, fascinated. This conversation hadn’t gone _anywhere_ that he thought it would go. A Phoenix? In his part of the realm, the Phoenix had been legends, not unlike the way dragons were legends to these humans: nearly immortal, with immense healing powers, enormous strength and beauty, and a resistance to all forms of heat and flame.

“Well, heat doesn’t bother me anymore. I can put my hand on the espresso machine at work and it doesn’t scald me at all. And I cut myself yesterday, remember?” She held up her hand and he examined the spot on her palm that yesterday had been a red slash. “But when I woke up this morning, it was completely healed. Donna said that other stuff might come to me later, too. I might even be able to...what word did she use? Oh! Regenerate!” 

Theta’s hearts threatened to burst from his chest in joy. This could be the answer to so many of his worries about them. The difference between his lifespan and hers alone had been weighing on him greatly. Plus, he had been incredibly worried that he might accidentally burn her or hurt her. 

And no wonder he’d felt so drawn to her! It hadn’t just been her beauty and her demeanor and her maidenhood that had drawn him to her. Now that he knew her heritage, he noticed her magical aura for the first time. Donna had hidden it well, but it hadn’t been a match for his thrall. The radiance that he’d sensed in her from the very beginning, that brilliant golden luster which had blinded him in rapture, shined even brighter now. He hadn’t thought it possible to be anymore in thrall with her than he already was. He’d been wrong.

He also knew that Donna had been absolutely correct in her worry about Rose. There would be others who would capture her if they thought she had even the slightest bit of Phoenix power. But they would never even get close. He would protect her with ever fiber of his being. As long as he breathed she would never be hurt. He would see to that. His mind was already racing to protection spells and wards, but he was brought back to the girl in front of him when she cleared her throat, looking nervous. 

“Is that..ok?” she asked, her body tense and her eyes unsure. “I know I’m not exactly what you thought you were getting…”

“You, Rose Tyler,” he said, reaching out and taking both of her hands in his, “are remarkable. I am honoured that you would even consider me a friend, much less a suitor.” He kissed the backs of her hands and Rose relaxed in front of him, blinding him with a bright smile. Now that her own secret was out, she seemed much happier. He only hoped that he would feel the same, once she knew his.

“Well, enough about me. We can figure all that out later, yeah? There was something else you wanted to tell me?” Rose prompted, smiling at him.

“Right,” he said, taking yet another deep breath and then releasing it harshly. Might as well just spit it out. “I’m a dragon.”

Rose’s eyes widened. “A dragon? What, like scales and fire breathing and stuff?” she asked incredulously.

“Among other things,” he replied, dryly. She was now gaping at him, open-mouthed, as though he was being ridiculous. Given how unflappable she had been about nearly everything else he’d thrown at her, and how much her life had already been turned wrongside up, he wasn’t sure why this seemed inconceivable. “Why is that so hard to believe?”

Rose blushed slightly, looking chastened. “It’s just...I mean you don’t look anything like I would expect a dragon to look. The stories obviously got dragons _really_ wrong,” she said, tilting her head to study him as if he was a foreign creature.

“Was your grandfather a giant, flaming bird?” he retorted.

“Well, no. At least not that I ever saw,” Rose answered. “Oh! You’ve got two forms, then? This is you as a human?”

It was his turn to blush. “Human-ish, anyway There are a few...differences..”

She looked like she wanted to ask the obvious biology question but, at his deep blush, she changed tactics.

“Two forms, huh? How did that come about?” she asked, tucking one leg up under herself and shifting toward him on the sofa. _Toward_ him, not away. He once again thanked his lucky stars that he’d found such an amazing woman. “I mean, did your people always have two bodies?”

Theta mirrored her position and moved his right arm to rest along the back of the sofa with his fingertips just brushing against her shoulder. “I only know what we’re taught at the Academy, but according to our legends, no. When my species was younger, we had only our prime form, which is very similar to the descriptions of dragons in your human stories. Large, scale-y, fire-breathing. There were a great number of dragons then, but it was a dark time. Dragons, as a rule, don’t get on particularly well with one another and back then...well, emotions ran strong. We competed for land, for treasure, and for partners, often killing one another over even the smallest matters. Clans were continually at war and, because our life spans are quite long, disagreements could last for centuries.” He paused a moment to make sure that she was still listening. Rose was watching him with rapt attention and he swelled with pride.

“Eventually, a dragon by the name of Rassilon or, as the legends refer to him, ‘The Great Father’, convinced the elder Dragonkind that something had to change or we were going to wipe out our own species. He worked with scores of the most talented magic users of the age to find a way to compartmentalize the strongest emotions that ran in our species’ veins. New laws were established and magically enforced. Dragons who couldn’t contain or suppress their emotions were eradicated and breeding was _supposed_ to be strictly regulated to control personality traits and bloodlines. But even Rassilon found he couldn’t quell the lustful nature of the species. So, supposedly, he and the Elders decided to create a second form, one that would encompass the strongest emotions and redirect them. And because humans were plentiful and...ah…generally very interested in expelling sexual energy, it was a natural, biological choice to base the second form upon them. Then, it was easy for Dragons to access humans and use them to satisfy their primal needs without endangering other dragons or risking punishment for breeding outside of regulation.”

Rose furrowed her brow and stared down at her lap, processing everything in silence. Theta shifted nervously, waiting for her to reply. He’d said rather more than he’d intended to about that particular topic, but he wanted Rose to know the truth. 

Finally, she spoke, looking straight ahead instead of at him, “So, humans are just some sort of...sex slaves to your lot? Just a means to an end?” Her voice was oddly brittle and careful as she said those last few words, and he nearly flung himself off the sofa in his haste to get in front of her, kneeling at her knees and taking both her hands in his. She didn’t shake his grip off but she also didn’t look him in the eye.

“To some dragons, yes, I’m afraid so, Rose. But not to all of them. And certainly not to me. I would never think of you like that! You’re different, Rose. So, so different. What I feel for you is much, much more than anything I’ve ever felt before or will ever feel again. You’re it for me, Rose Tyler.” He moved one hand up to gently turn her head, willing her desperately to look at him. “And I hope over the past few weeks I’ve shown you how much I care for you, how deeply my thrall runs.” She finally shifted her gaze and he breathed a sigh of relief as he saw her eyes met his. 

“Yeah, I know,” she said, softly. “It’s just, there’s been other guys who...well, who haven’t been too nice about that kind of thing and you kind of hit a nerve.”

Instantly, Theta felt his skin tingle and heat as anger washed through him. He wanted to find any stupid little human boy who had ever said a word against his Rose and tear the idiot to pieces. To his surprise, Rose laughed and he blinked, the rage clearing from his face in an instant. “What?”

“You really do steam!” she said, laughing again. “I knew it! There was smoke coming out of your nose just now! In the coffee shop, with those robbers, I thought there was smoke coming from back you but then I just dismissed it, thinking I was crazy. But I wasn’t being crazy! Ha! Can you breathe fire?”

“Yes, but it takes a lot of energy in this form and I’d rather not do it right now,” he answered, relieved that she wasn’t angry with him. (Plus he wasn’t sure how his breath would be after. He’d never breathed fire and then kissed someone...it might not be pleasant.) He had a feeling they weren’t done talking about his ancestry, but he was happy to let the topic go for now.

“Oh, so you have something else planned to do with all that energy, huh?” Rose asked, coyly, squeezing his hands and grinning at him. Theta smiled at her and then stood up pulling her with him. 

“Might do,” he answered, moving her hands up to rest on his shoulders. She quickly took the hint and wrapped them around his neck, leaning up to share a soft kiss. He rested his forehead against hers and they breathed together, eyes closed.

“That was a lot to process,” Rose said, sighing against his lips. 

“You’re telling me,” he murmured. “I was so worried about how you would react when I finally told you and you already knew!” _And you’re descended from a Phoenix_ , he added silently.

“But we’ll figure it all out,” she said, sounding confident. “Better with two?”

He moved so his arms wrapped around her tightly. “Better with two,” he repeated.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ok, I know this took a while. But, look! It's long! And smutty! And...and...wing porn! =) Hopefully it was worth the wait and it brightens your day. Probably one more chapter to wrap up these crazy lovebirds (love dragons? Love creatures?)

_Theta_

Rose pulled back from him and moved her hands down to tug at the lapels of his leather jacket. “So...a dragon, huh?”

He smiled down at her nervously. “Yep!” he replied with a wide smile, trying to cover up the return of his anxious fidgeting. 

“Right,” Rose began, and then trailed off, studying his jacket. She cleared her throat. “You mentioned some, um, differences?” she asked and he watched as she blushed at him prettily. He caught a hefty wave of pheromones from her and flushed too. Well, apparently Rose had decided to take the lead in the next step. She was certainly being braver than he about all of this.

Theta coughed and shifted so his hands rested on her hips, clutching her like a lifeline. Licking his lips, he tried to decide how to answer her. Part of him wanted to throw caution to the wind, tear off his cap and jacket, and just get it all over with at once. _Annnnd_ part of him wanted to retreat from her, cross his arms over his chest, and change the subject. But Rose was watching him expectantly and her eyes were wide and vulnerable. Retreat would only hurt her feelings and he really didn’t want to move backwards, not after all they’d accomplished tonight.

Watching her very closely, he moved her hands from his lapels, inside his jacket, and rested one over each of his rapidly-beating hearts. At first she seemed a bit confused, but then her fingers reflexively closed over the soft wool and her eyes widened with recognition. “I have two hearts,” he said, softly. 

“Wow,” she said. “That’s amazing.”

“Means I’m stronger and faster than a human,” he continued. “And my body temperature is probably a bit different than you’re used to.”

“You probably have better stamina than a human, too, I reckon,” Rose said, rather breathily and he looked down at her in surprise. Her blush deepened further and he felt his smile grow. OK, then. If she was willing to casually discuss stamina, apparently she wasn’t planning to hold anything back. Well, then neither would he.

“Much better,” he replied, letting his voice drop a little lower and internally crowing in satisfaction as her eyes darkened.

“What else?” she asked, moving her hands over his pectorals, which made it hard for him to concentrate on answering her.

He didn’t have to look at his hands to know that the iridescent blue scales under his skin had shimmered to the surface, flamboyantly showing off his arousal. He took her hands and pulled them down off his chest, holding her fingers so she would look at the beryl luster of the backs of his hands. She gasped. 

“S’amazing, too,” she murmured. Rose ran her fingers lightly over the smooth surface of his hands and wrists. He shuddered at her feather-light touch and felt his wings stiffen further. The pressure of his jacket across his shoulders was growing uncomfortably tight. Bigger on the inside or not, the leather could only take so much. “They’re not always like this, are they? I mean, I’ve never seen the blue before. Is it magic?”

“Not exactly,” he answered, shivering again as she traced the outline of each scale on his right hand up to his forearm and back down. “The scales only show up if I’m angry or aroused.”

Her gaze shot up to his and his breath caught as she tucked her tongue into the corner of her mouth and grinned at him. “Oh, really?” 

Rose slowly raised one of his hands to her mouth and gently kissed the back, her lips gliding over the smooth scales with intent. A wave of desire crashed over him, nearly making his legs buckle. Oh, Eternals. This night was going to kill him. She kissed him again, this time letting her soft mouth linger a bit longer and he groaned out loud. “And which one are you now, angry or aroused?” she asked, coyly. He didn’t answer, just closed his eyes to enjoy the feelings she was creating. “Theta…” Rose whispered, her warm breath caressing the sensitive skin she had just been kissing.

“What?” he asked, dazed. He opened his eyes to look down at her.

“I said, which one are you now?” she repeated and he could see mirth dancing in her expression.

“I think you know,” he growled, moving to draw her in closer.

She laughed and pulled back from him instead, letting one hand, linked with hers, fall down to his side. “All right, so what else is different?”

He squinted at her. Both his two hearts and the slight shimmer to his skin when aroused were relatively minor physical discrepancies, in the grand scale of things. The next two human/dragon differences were...rather larger, he imagined. “You’re sure it’s ok?”

She smiled at him gently and moved her free hand up to rest on the side of his face, her thumb sliding over his cheekbone. He leaned into the touch. “Theta, it’s fine. Honestly. I mean, you could tell me that you have two stomachs, that your hair turns orange in the summer, and that you eat grass and safety pins and I would still feel exactly the same about you, yeah? I don’t care about any of this stuff. You’re you and that’s enough for me. As long as I’m enough for you.”

His hearts swelled. “You’re more than enough for me, Rose Tyler.” She was wonderful. “Ok, then.” He reached up with his right hand and removed his knit cap. 

Most dragons hadn’t ever bothered to hide their horns while in human form. In fact, having large, imposing horns was usually seen as a very attractive feature as it clearly set a dragon in his or her secondary form apart from a mere human. However, since his first few days in this strange modern world, Theta had been keeping his horns filed down relatively short. His hair, which was longer than the short, severe style he’d worn at the Academy, had grown around them and, though it couldn’t cover them completely, it certainly made them less noticeable. At first this had simply been a precaution, but once he’d met Rose, he’d decided to keep them dull and short to make sure he didn’t accidentally hurt her, should the occasion ever arise for her to see them.

“Oo, I like them!” she exclaimed, pulling his chin down so she could examine his hair and horns more closely. “Thought that might be why you wear a hat all the time. They’re cute!”

“Cute?” he sputtered, chin jutting upward out of her grip in defiance. They weren’t supposed to be _cute_. They were supposed to be...impressive. 

“I mean...they’re very manly,” Rose corrected quickly, with a twinkle in her eye.

“Thanks,” he muttered. “That _really_ helps.”

She laughed and put her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. “I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you?”

“Ok, then,” he mumbled against her mouth. Oh, but he was going to let her get away with so, so much if this was how she was going to make things up to him. He tried to focus on her delightful, hot mouth but he kept getting distracted by her wandering hands. Rose was taking full enjoyment of his cap-less state, running her hands through his hair, tousling it and stroking the back of his neck, his ears, and his horns and it was driving him absolutely mad. No one had ever touched his horns before. No one! 

He tightened his arms, pressing her against him, and trying to get some friction to soothe the ruthless ache of arousal building in his system. It had been _so_ long since he’d been able to find satisfaction, even by his own hand. He needed and wanted her so badly. Rose’s hands tightened in his hair as he pushed his hips against her. She seemed to like that, so he did it again, and this time his tongue ventured into her mouth, deepening the kiss. They remained locked together like that for several long moments before Rose suddenly pulled back from him, gasping for air.

“Geez! Don’t you need to breathe?” she panted, her hands moving to her chest, which was rapidly rising and falling as she gulped down oxygen.

“Respiratory bypass system,” he replied, smiling sheepishly at her once he knew that she wasn’t hurt. He had been so focused on kissing her and feeling her body move against his that he hadn’t even realized that he’d engaged the bypass. “It helps with the fire-breathing.”

Rose gave a weak chuckle and shook her head. “Well, I don’t have one of those, so we’re going to have to break for air every now and then, deal?”

“Deal,” he answered. 

“All right, anything else?” she asked. She offered him a flirtatious smile and hooked her fingers in his jeans pockets and tugged. “Packing standard equipment, sir?”

He blushed mightily at that and not just because Rose’s fingers were now centimeters from where he would really like them to be. Standard below the belt? Yes, for the most part. Standard above the belt? Not so much. There were, of course, one (or rather two) last rather big thing(s). He cleared his throat. “One more thing,” he said and Rose smiled encouragingly at him. “D’you, ah, d’you think you could close your eyes for a minute?”

She immediately shut them and took a step away from the sofa but her encouraging smile stayed in place. He took a deep breath and shucked his leather jacket. His wings instantly sprang out to their full extension, long and stiff, and he couldn’t help the deep sigh of relief he instantly uttered. After a moment’s thought, he struggled out of his jumper as well. It took a few seconds of awkward maneuvering to get it free over his extremely-erect wings and he was very glad he’d done that move with Rose’s eyes shut as it certainly hadn’t been elegant. He glanced down his body, hoping that she wouldn’t be freaked out by his wings or disappointed at his physique. He wasn’t heavily muscled, like the men he saw in magazines (and on the telly. And in the online videos that he’d watched for...research purposes), but his frame was solid and strong. He could protect her. He would protect her. Blue arousal scales shimmered lightly across his chest and collarbone and over his abdominal muscles, darkening in colour as they disappeared into his jeans. 

And then there were his wings. Oh, he’d always been so proud of his wings. They extended from the center of his upper back, just on either side of his spine and together, they created a wingspan that was approximately his height. He’d always had large wings for his size, and that had always been envied by his Academy peers (Koschei, in particular). The colouring of a Dragon’s wings and scales differed greatly across the species and he’d never seen anyone with his markings before. His wings began in navy along the tops, the rich, dark blue colour extending from shoulder to tip then slowly kaleidoscoping to the ice blue of his gaze along the bottom edge. He’d always thought they were his very best feature and keeping them hidden in this world was one of his biggest regrets. But would Rose like them? That was the big question. He took a deep breath. Only one way to find out.

“You can open your eyes now,” he said, softly.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

_Rose_

Rose had not been truly shocked by anything Theta had shown her so far, which was probably the strangest part of this experience. Somewhere in the back of her lowly human mind, she knew that this stuff was probably supposed to freak her out or drive her away from him. Scales? Breathing fire? Two hearts? _Horns_? There were so many differences between them, so many obstacles for them to overcome. But rather than finding their differences disenchanting or disheartening, she found them exhilarating. It was exciting that this unique, strange, wonderful man was _hers_. She’d been expecting some biological differences, after all, Donna had prepared her for that. And she knew that there was something else, something big, that he hadn’t told her yet, and she found that she couldn’t wait to see it. On some level, she’d even suspected that he might have wings, particularly after she’d seen the fae’s.

But...but _wow_.

She opened her eyes and drank in the sight of him. She’d heard him shuffling around and thought he was removing his jacket. But he’d also removed his jumper and her brain practically overloaded at the sight of the beautiful man in front of her.

His strong, defined chest was _gorgeous_. The iridescent blue scales she’d seen shimmering on the back of his hands also glimmered across his pectorals where she might have expected hair from a human man. A glance further down also showed her a trail of darkening scales that led into the tight black jeans currently perched low on his bony hips. She wanted to follow that trail with her fingers and then her lips, just to see what other treasures awaited her under his clothes and she wanted those jeans in a pile on the floor. 

And then there were the wings. His long, powerful, impressive wings extended out on either side of him and they seemed to shift colours in the flickering candlelight of his flat. The light blue at the bottom matched his eyes exactly and in that moment, he was the most exquisite, alien thing she’d ever seen. She wasn’t sure how long they stood with her mesmerized, rapturous gaze on him and his carefully blank expression on her. 

“Turn around?” she asked softly and he complied, moving in a slow circle so she could see his back before facing her again. He had to pull the wings in a bit so they didn’t hit her as he turned and she heard him make a small but very sexy groaning noise as they retracted slightly and then returned to full extension.

“Theta,” she breathed, once he was around all the way and his intense gaze was back on her. He flexed the wings again and she wondered if the movement was involuntary or if he was showing off. “They’re _beautiful_.” She didn’t care that he might not like that descriptor. They were beautiful. And so was he.

The blank expression melted away, replaced by tentative hope and his wings flexed again. Definitely showing off. “Really?” 

“Yes,” she whispered, stepping closer. The air between them crackled with potential. “They’re the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. Can...can I?” she trailed off, hand already outstretched.

To her surprise, he took a step back from her and a strange, almost panicked expression crossed his face, replacing the hope. She immediately dropped her hand and moved away. “Sorry, sorry,” she said, babbling in her nerves. “Was that rude? Maybe that was rude. Stupid, stupid me. Never met anyone with wings before. Oh, wait, yes I have. Donna, of course. I didn’t ask to touch hers though, didn’t seem -”

“Rose -” he said gently, cutting her off. “It’s ok.”

“Really?” she asked, echoing his earlier question. “Didn’t seem ok a second ago.”

He reached over and took both her hands in his and pulled her closer to him. “I’m not offended. You surprised me, is all. Touching someone else’s wings isn’t typically done.”

“Oh,” she said, irrationally disappointed, looking down at her toes. Now that she’d seen them, all she wanted to do was run her fingers over that shifting, beautiful blue and see if the wings were as smooth and cool as his hands. She imagined what those wings would look like, spread out on either side of him as he loomed over her, skin to skin, in the big, soft bed she guessed was hiding in the one room she hadn’t seen yet. Or how they would look stretched out across the sofa as she straddled his lap and rode him. Or how...

He interrupted her thoughts as he let go of one of her hands to tip her chin up. “I said it’s not _typically_ done,” he teased, smiling down at her with a hidden gleam in his eye. “Aren’t you going to ask me why?”

Rose huffed. Somehow it felt like the simmering arousal between them had cooled all of a sudden and she wanted it back. He’d taken his shirt off! Wasn’t that supposed to be a step forward? “Why?” she asked, grudgingly, not meeting his eyes again.

“It’s not typically done, Rose Tyler,” he said, leaning in closer to her and letting his lips brush her ear and the arousal came roaring back with a vengeance. “Because it’s very, very,” he paused for a moment and let his mouth wander down to her neck and then back up to her ear, “ _very_ intimate.” The last word was said in a low, sexy rumble and was accompanied by a soft but insistent bite to her earlobe.

“Oh,” she breathed, very different from the first time she’d said it just a few seconds ago. “So...so I can?” His lips brushed her neck again and she felt him nod, his cheek grazing hers. He pulled back and watched her with arousal-darkened eyes as she stretched a shaking hand toward the shining blue surface. His chest was rapidly rising and falling and he looked like a starved man seeing food for the first time in ages as he watched her hand get closer.

As her fingertips connected with the expanse of smooth, shimmering blue, he made what was probably the sexiest sound Rose had ever heard come out of a man. His eyes slammed shut, he moaned her name and his entire body shuddered. Her fingertips swept along the top edge of his right wing and he began to pant, making a few more incomprehensible noises. Feeling braver, she then ran her palm along the wide span of his right wing and his knees actually buckled, which sent him sprawling onto the couch. They both seemed surprised at his sudden fall and, with what looked like enormous effort, he opened his eyes. She was shocked to see that his pupils were blown wide, making his eyes look almost black. 

“Rose Tyler,” he growled, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her toward him until she stood between his spread knees. His hands confidently moved until they rested over her arse and he squeezed, making a flood of arousal sweep through her. His grin became terribly wicked and he repeated the motion, inhaling deeply as she flushed again. It seemed that touching his wings had flipped some invisible switch in him. Gone was the unsure, nervous man who had stammered at her about candles and kissing. In his place was a confident, sexy seducer whose hands were currently working their way under her dress to flirt with the edges of her lace knickers, which were now nearly soaked through.

“May I remove your dress?” he asked. Rose, very distracted by his adventurous fingers, managed a moan of consent. A wide, happy grin lit up his face and he pushed lightly on her hips, encouraging her to turn around. She heard him stand up behind her and he swept her hair off to the side, letting a few lingering kisses caress her shoulders. Then his clever hands found the zip of her dress and he slowly lowered it, revealing each millimeter of her skin to his lips. She heard him take a step backward and she could practically feel his burning gaze on her. She shrugged out of the dress, letting the fabric pool at her feet and then she slowly turned around to face him.

“Beautiful,” he breathed. He sounded so sincere and his gaze was so rapturous, that she had to take his word for it. She had never felt so beautiful before and she once again thanked her lucky stars that this man was hers.

Then, without warning, he swept her up into his arms and turned on his heel toward the unopened door to his bedroom. The door burst open of its own accord (and that was a sneakily impressive bit of magic, there) to reveal another cool, cave-like room lit with a dozen more candles. He reverently put her down on the soft, luxurious bed (she’d been right about that, then) and she propped herself up on her elbows to look at him as he stood beside the bed staring at her. As she watched, he held her eye contact and moved his hands to the button and zip of his jeans. Never looking away from her, he pulled them off along with his pants and toed off his socks, and then, suddenly, he standing completely naked before her in the flickering candlelight of his bedroom. 

He was tall and muscular and his wings were spread on either side of him, wide and stiff. Biting her lip, she traced her gaze down his body, taking in his taut stomach and the sharp angles of his hipbones. She’d done her research, read a lot of articles and watched some videos too, but no amount of study could really have prepared her for seeing him naked for the first time. The blue scales she’d seen shimmering on his chest also sparkled on his hips, his thighs and the tops of his feet; they highlighted the valley of his hipbones and his knobby knees. His cock stood proud and erect, its long, thick length straining toward her. Something inside her clenched at the sight and as she thought of him moving deep within her, she felt a fresh wave of arousal sweep through her.

Then he moved once again, sitting on the side of the bed to reverently reach out and touch her. She held her breath as his fingers settled on her hip then drifted up from her bare stomach to her breasts. She reached behind and undid the clasp of her bra and he helped ease the fabric down her shoulders and then he threw it somewhere over his shoulder. His breath caught at the sight of her naked skin. She had a brief, giggling thought that she hoped he hadn’t thrown her bra onto a candle before he leaned forward and kissed the top of her right breast, his lips just grazing the soft skin, which replaced pretty much all her coherent thoughts. He repeated the gesture on her left breast and his right hand came up to massage the other, his rough thumb brushing over her nipple and making her arch toward him. She closed her eyes and became lost in his ministrations, enjoying every brush of his lips and hands against her sensitive skin. She didn’t even notice him moving and shifting until he was braced just above her, his thighs pressed into hers with his arousal hot and heavy on her stomach. 

“Rose,” he called softly. “Look at me.” She opened her eyes to see him balancing his weight on his left arm, his right hand cradling her face. He leaned down and kissed her with an open mouth and let his tongue tangle with hers, setting up a steady thrusting pattern that she began to mimic with her body. Rose wrapped her arms around him, enjoying the cool feel of his skin under her fingers. She started with her hands around his waist, massaging the wonderfully knobby bones of his hips and then, feeling braver, she worked them down until she held his arse firmly in both hands. His hips shot forward and they both groaned at the new friction, so she repeated the action, with the same lovely results. He shifted down slightly so his warm length rested wetly against her sodden knickers and they began a steady push and pull that had her gasping and writhing and him growling above her. One of her hands stayed on his arse, helping to guide his rhythm against her and the other instinctively moved up his back until it laid firmly on his spine at the spot both of his wings connected. She pressed down and his mouth and hips stalled against hers as he let out a guttural shout in another language, so loud that she almost thought he had reached his first climax already. And then he was pulling away from her, reluctantly moving his hips backwards and putting distance between them. She made a noise of disappointment and he chuckled. 

“It was getting a little, ah...too fantastic for me,” he admitted with a shy, rather embarrassed smile. He propped himself up on one elbow beside her and trailed his other hand lightly over her skin. “You are so beautiful,” he whispered and the awed look on his face filled her with warmth. “I want to give you everything.”

“Theta, I - I,” she began, suddenly overwhelmed with love for him. But what words could she offer him? Even ‘love’ didn’t seem like enough to encompass all things he had come to mean to her. She knew that she would spend the rest of her life by his side, that she would spend the rest of her life loving him and she couldn’t possibly wait one more second to tell him _something_. “I want to say ‘I love you’, but that doesn’t feel like enough.”

His eyes softened and the hand on her body settled over her singular heart as he seemed to read her thoughts. “From what I’ve seen and heard over the last few months, humans mean a lot of different things when they say ‘love’. And Dragons didn’t have a word like that at all, not really. Personal connection was...not done, not really. And true connection, the thrall between two souls, a connection like ours is so, so rare...It scared them. And it used to scare me, too.”

“But not anymore?” Rose asked moving onto her side too, so they were nose to nose. 

 

“Oh, no, I’m still terrified,” he whispered against her lips, pulling her close to him. “I’m terrified that I’ll lose you. I’m terrified that I won’t be enough for you and you’ll leave me. I’m terrified that someone will try to take you from me and I won’t be able to stop them. But you’re worth it. You’re worth the demons and the monsters, Rose Tyler. Even if they’re only the demons in my own mind.”

Rose wrapped her arm around him and pulled him on top of her, using her kiss to say all the things she couldn’t get out in words. It didn’t take long of the sweet, tentative tangle of their mouths to become hot and heavy and before long, his fingers were sweeping the edge of her knickers once more. 

He pulled back with a question in his eyes and Rose nodded. Slowly, with all the care in the world, he eased her lace knickers down her legs. When they, too, were discarded over his shoulder, he again settled himself between her knees. She closed her eyes as his hands danced up her thighs. 

“Rose,” he said softly once more and she opened her eyes and smiled, giving him permission in the bite of her lip. His wings were spread wide on either side of his body and his intense blue eyes were watching his hands with the same unwavering focus he’d been giving her every day in the coffee shop the entire time she’d known him.

She gasped when his fingers brushed against her folds for the first time. His thumb easily found her clit and her hips shot up off the bed, which made her blush but his expression only grew more devout. He stroked and massaged her until she felt her muscles relaxing and she began squirming under his touch for more. He obliged, letting his index finger brush inside her and then retreat before returning to delve deeper and her eyes shut again. It was a little uncomfortable at first, but his slow, methodical plying of her pleasure centers quickly banished the pain and he added a second finger. Her knees fell further apart as she lost herself to the pleasure he was providing her and he breathed out heavily. “My maiden goddess,” he whispered, his voice a passionate rasp. “I’m not going to last long, so I need you to be close. Are you close, my Rose? My _arkytior_?”

Her eyes opened at the sound of the beautiful, jangling word that fell from his lips and she gasped as his thumb swept across her clitoris again. She nodded for the third time, overcome, and he gently eased his hand from her and moved up her body. “Focus on me,” he commanded and she looked into his fiery blue eyes. His voice was different, somehow, deeper and more ancient. She felt him line up his rock hard length at her entrance with one hand and she kept her eyes trained on his craggy, beautiful face as his other hand came up to rest against her temple. “It might hurt a bit, my maiden, but if you let me, I can share the burden.” 

Never breaking eye contact with her, he moved his hips forward slowly and her breath caught at the sharp sting that accompanied him filling her up. But then, just as he’d said, she felt him there with her, like he was sharing her mind and body. She knew how amazing it felt for him to be sheathed in her warm, slick walls just as she knew what it felt like to have him there. The pain flickered away in a twitch of his facial muscles and then he was moving inside her, shallow at first and then growing deeper and more confident as she began to push back against him. 

It was good, great, fantastic, even, but she wanted something else, something more. She shifted underneath him and he grunted as she unexpectedly changed his rhythm. Then she wrapped her legs around his waist and instinctively angled her hips up his cock brushed against her clitoris with each thrust and, _oh_ yes, that was it. He seemed to appreciate the new angle as well, uttering another guttural sound, as if he was swearing in the language of the earth itself. His movements became more and more frantic and he began whispering to her in another language, the beautiful, musical name he’d called her earlier falling from his lips again and again as he thrust into her. 

She felt herself moving toward the edge of something amazing, cresting toward something just beyond her reach. They strained and moved together and Rose felt her own climax coming, barreling in on her. But she wanted to get there with him. Remembering his reaction earlier, she moved her hands up so they brushed the soft skin of his back, just between his wings and she pressed down on his spine just as his hips thrust forward one last time. Theta shouted her name, in English this time, and she echoed him with a vehement cry of her own as her body spasmed around his. His fingers fumbled for her temples as cold seed shot into her again and again she kept her legs wrapped tightly around him drawing out every bit of pleasure she could. She was caught in a maelstrom of pleasure, his reflecting her own and she wondered if it would ever end. Slowly, his hips stopped pumping into her and she let her legs fall from his waist. He dropped onto her heavily, burying his face in her neck with a very satisfied sigh. And then he unexpectedly rolled to his back, pulling her to his chest and wrapping her up in his now-pliant, soft wings.

A brief, hazy thought whipped across her mind, reminding her that this should be weird. She was wrapped up in a pair of _wings_ across the blue chest of her dragon-lover in his lair. But really all she could think was, “Wow.”

He let out a gentle huff of laughter against her hair. “Yeah,” he answered, tightening his wings and arms around her. “Wow.”


End file.
